Homo Faber

The narrative follows Walter Faber a middle-class UNESCO engineer who believes in a rational calculated universe. Strange circumstances threaten his safety: an unplanned emergency landing in the Mexican desert his friend Joachim hanging himself in the Mexican jungle he falling in love with a woman who dies of a concussion and he having an incestuous affair. Faber eventually develops stomach cancer but it is too late for him to change his ways. Suhrkamp Verlag originally published Homo Faber in Frankfurt Germany in 1957. Abelard-Schuman released the first English edition in 1959 in London England translated by Michael Bullock. The book has been translated into a number of languages and published in a number of hardcover and paperback editions. Voyager directed by Volker Schlöndorff and starring Sam Shepard and Julie Delpy was based on the novel and released in 1991.