In Maxim Biller's novel 'Mama Odessa', the world of the Russian-Jewish Grinbaum family from Hamburg is full of secrets, betrayals, and literature. At its heart are a son and a mother, both writers, who betray each other through their writing, yet love each other, never truly losing each other. There is also the memory of the grandfather, who miraculously escaped the Nazi massacre of Odessa's Jews in 1941. And the story of the father, who evades a KGB poisoning attempt, clings to Zionist dreams, and ends up stranded in Hamburg's Grindel district, where nothing remains to remind one of the area's Jewish past—and where he ceases to love his wife, leaving her for a German woman. Biography: Maxim Biller, born in Prague in 1960, has lived in Germany since 1970. He is a writer and journalist, and also writes plays and columns. New product