*Juli Zeh is a lawyer in Leipzig who turned to thriller writing, wanders through the Balkans with a dog, and has a punk band. Oh, and she writes some dystopian sci-fi, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juli_Zeh
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/may/18/germany-pirate-party-political-gap
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-method-by-juli-zeh-7800875.html
http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/centre-study-contemporary-womens-writing/languages/german/juli-zeh
"Zeh’s socially critical view can be found in all her works. In her travel prose Die Stille ist ein Geräusch [Even Silence is a Noise] she describes her journey to the bomb-shattered post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina– only accompanied by her dog Othello. As in her other works, it shows her powers of observation, and her language is rich in metaphor and wit.
"The novel published in 2004, Spieltrieb [Gaming Instinct] tells the story of two young students – Ada and Alev – who blackmail their teacher Smutek.
"Starting very calmly the novel ends - after an act of violence – disturbingly. Zeh questioned ideas of good and evil when writing about ‘immorality and its consequences and [this novel] questions the continued validity of traditional principles and values and poses one of the most significant questions of our time: who today can say what is good and what is evil, and how can they know?’
"The Novel Schilf (2007) was published in 2010 in English translation with two different titles, originally with Havrill Sacker as Dark Matter, and with Nan A. Talese as In Free Fall.
"Her latest novel Corpus Delicti is a dystopian novel about a society that takes over control of the health of its citizens. When Mia’s brother commits suicide in prison, she loses faith in the system which controls everybody’s health. Standing up against the system, she refuses to obey the law. During her trial she is prepared to die a martyr’s death, but it turns out that she is being tricked. There can be similarities drawn to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and also Kafka’s Der Prozeß [The Trial].
"The main question Zeh puts forward is that of personal freedom and which rights state and legislature are allowed to have. In Autumn 2009 she went on tour with the German alternative band Slut. They composed several songs based on her book, and even published it as a CD. About the same time she published the political essay Angriff auf die Freiheit [Assault on Liberty: The Obsession with National Security] together with Ilija Trojanow. They strongly criticize the fact that personal freedom is in danger because the state observes its citizens via internet, CCTV cameras etc. People are made to believe that it is for their own good and is necessary after the events of 9/11.
"In 2008, Zeh made a formal complaint to the German Interior Minister about the infringement of the constitutional right to privacy posed by the introduction of biometric passports. Juli Zeh was awarded the Gerty-Spies-Prize for her political commitment and her socially critical writing."