She grew up in a small town in northern Germany. After leaving school, she studied journalism and art history, then began to work as a journalist. She has lived in various German cities and was also in London for a time. (Source: biography on her blog www.norahrichter.de)

She loves meat and hates fish. She likes red wine, especially Malbec. (Source: Instagram)

She supports Médecins Sans Frontières and Reporters Without Borders. (Source: Twitter)

Her most traumatic experience was the suicide of a sixteen-year-old friend in 2000. (Source: blog post about depression and suicide, 30.05.2014)

She is single, having recently split up with her partner Alexander Bauer, a 39-year-old surgeon who lives in Berlin, the son of a German mother and an African-American father. (Source: Facebook)

In the last six months, she has been to the cinema seven times and attended five concerts—Arcade Fire, Nick Cave, Sigur Rós, Soap&Skin and Amanda Palmer. (Sources: Instagram and Twitter)

Her best female friend is called Sandra, her best male friend is Max. In spite of these social ties, she calls herself an ‘introvert’ and a ‘part-time social outsider’. (Source: blog post on the difference between shyness and introversion, 17.11.2015)

Her greatest fear is to be responsible for someone’s death. (Source: feature on gun freaks in Germany, 04.08.2014)

She describes herself as a feminist. Her favourite holiday destination is Florence; she loves Renaissance art—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli. She likes wearing black. (Source: Instagram)

She almost died of a drug overdose in London, but got clean with the help of her friends and extreme sports. She speaks openly of her addiction. (Source: Facebook post, 31.12.2015)

She almost studied law, but soon realised that ‘law and justice [didn’t] have much to do with each other’ and switched to journalism. Injustice drives her ‘wild’. (Source: her blog, passim)

I’m getting there, moving closer. I’m enjoying myself. I have a feeling it might turn out to be easier than I thought.

12

Norah surveyed her hosts’ dining room, a glass of champagne in her hand. Some flats were so perfectly fitted out that they gave you the impression you were in a museum, but although Max and Paul’s apartment looked like something out of Architectural Digest, they’d managed to give it a warm, homely feel. Paul was preparing food in the kitchen; Max was frowning at the shelves of records, trying to decide on an album, and Lolita, the British bulldog, was snoring on the rug in front of the sofa.

A lot of white, a lot of grey, a lot of brown leather. The high moulded ceilings were newly painted, the parquet recently sanded, the walls hung with modern art. Lush yucca palms and monsteras grew in big pots, and in the middle of the spacious living-cum-dining room stood an enormous mangowood table that Paul had designed and built himself. Norah examined one of the pictures, a painting so rich with gold that it seemed to give off heat. She reached for her phone to take a photo, then remembered, not for the first time that day, that she’d lost it. She’d spent a good half hour searching, but with no luck. Norah turned to a drawing of Max asleep. It was a fine piece of work that had something almost fairytale-like. Max’s flat cap had been thrown down next to the bed, his glasses were on the bedside table, his light-brown hair slightly tousled. He looked as if he were dreaming.