About the author:

 

The German novel Tizian – Eine Geschichte aus dem Leben der Jana Z. is an incredible story with a Christian background and was written by the German author Maria Anders. Right after school (Abitur), Maria Anders studied Anglistics and German. Years later she visited in addition to that a commercial college to become a foreign language secretary. Maria Anders studied also journalism at a Long Distance College.

 

About the book:

 

This novel tells us the story of Jana, a twenty year old German who leaves her little home village Spiersbach to study Anglistics and German in Cologne. But - all alone in a big city - Jana feels very soon bored and lonely. She tries to find new friends in the busy streets of the Old Town of Cologne and comes very fast across Toni, a sympathic young musician and his friends. As Toni is the active member of an obscure sect, this new friendship leads Jana very soon into a lively nightmare:

She gets a brainwashing and is set under hypnosis. In last second she can flee - and a very big and dangerous adventure begins ...

 

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Please find here the English version of the first Chapter of the book:

 

The Third Season

 

It was a wonderful morning in fall. Lost in thoughts I walked slowely along long parkways of tall plane trees and noticed – suddenly - how pretty and nice the fall could be. All the pathes were littered with very big and golden leaves. They lied down on the ground at my feet, they lied on the roofs of parked cars, they decorated hedges, fences and also smaller and already bald bushes. A snowy morning in winter would not be more wonderful.

 

For the very first time for years I was conscious that the life did not stop by the end of the summer. Sure, the flowers, the sunshine, the singing birds, the warmth and the time of the long and light evenings were over, but the life did not automatically stop by that. It just prepared itself for a winterly silence to get able to turn in a sudden spring - after some sleepy months and like over night – its inside out again. Naturally I have always known that since I had been a child – every schoolkid is learning that very soon in school or already in kindergarten – but for me it was a totally difference, to feel this learned truth now: It is always the same power which is surrounding us. It only has got another shape.

 

“And always and everywhere it is the ALMIGHTY GOD”, I thought. “It is the ALMIGHTY GOD who is always present and who shines always through everything to show us that HE is there. That HE is really there …”

It was so overwhelming to feel how perfectly the whole life was organized in spring, summer, fall and winter and how perfectly the biological cycles of life were surrounding us.

 

Later in the evening, when I brought Tizian – my little four years old nephew - to bed and read a little bedtime-story for him, I noticed once again that Tizian thought more and more about everything I was telling him. When the time came where we were praying a little good-night prayer, it finally bursted out of him: 

“Auntie Jana”, he asked me in a sudden hit. “Who is God at all? Where is he living? Is he also made from flesh and blood like you and me and has God also hair on his head? … And does God like Gummibears? And, and, and …” It was really not so easy to answer all his questions but bravely I tried.

“Tizian”, I heard me say. “I myself do not know that so exactly. Nobody knows that all exactely. We can only read what is written in the Bible. Perhaps it is real that God is also made from flesh and blood but in any case he is living very very far away from us and he is always taking good care of us. He is protecting us from everything – like your guardian angel is doing that. Day by day. And now - please close your eyes, shut your mouth and good night! Everbody wants to sleep now …”

“And God …”, Tizian asked again. “Is God sleeping now too?” “Perhaps”, I answered him “I really do not know that.”

“But Auntie Jana, I do not want to close my eyes. I get afraid then. Afraid of the darkness outside and of all the bats that are flying around when the deep night has come. Sammy has said that the bats fly around the whole night to hunt insects and other little deers.”

“Then just close your eyes and try to see your guardian angel, holding a little light in his hands and so you will see that all the bats will fly away”, I responded strictly. “And now good night.”

“Good night, Auntie Jana”, Tizian whispered back with his little voice and only seconds later he was finally fallen asleep. 

 

Some minutes later when I could hear his calm and regular breathing, I got up and

went slowly upstairs into my little livingroom. Lost in thoughts I sat down on the edge of my couch. I had to think about the last words I had spoken to Tizian: “Just try to see your guardian angel with a little light in his hands and all the evils will flee – and all the bats will fly away.”

 

It seemed to be so easy! But only one and a half years ago it was, that really nothing in my own life had been easy for me – and I had been afraid of almost everything. I had been afraid of a world which could not hold me any longer: In which everything seemed to burst and to crash. I had not been longer able to put my trust in anything or anybody. Not in the cars which stopped at every red traffic light, not in the water tap that I turned off, not in the clock which went in a circle … Always around and around. Like me …

 

English version of the first chapter of the German novel

“Tizian – Eine Geschichte aus dem Leben der Jana Z.“

written by Maria Anders