In “Bullhunger”, Cy Linke tells a raw and witty story of illness and lust, queer joy and queer pain, confrontation and tenderness, desire and rebellion. A clear, poetic and deeply timely novel about a bold life - taking it by the horns.

Cy is obsessed with bulls. With the plan to become a bullfighter, Cy travels to Seville and finds themselves amid the Holy Week celebrations: the bullfighting school is closed. While waiting for their first bullfight, cought between incense and one-night stand, virginity cult and strap-on workshop, Cy encounters their own past selves: the child at the Catholic girls’ school who ‘marries’ their best friend in the school playground and realises they have to get away; the boy on Canada’s west coast who feels like themselves for the first time. Who, back in Germany, notices the right angles and the sadness hanging over their parents’ home. Who no longer fits in at the girls’ school, clings to their time in Canada and develops an eating disorder. The girl on fire who toughens their body in the gym until they vomit. The bull with a bull’s hunger, who lacks the words to describe it.
Bulimia literally means “bull’s hunger”. In Seville, and through writing and rewriting their memories, Cy sets out in search of a language for their own illness, for their own queerness, for love, and for a life that doesn’t fit into rigid structures.

Cy searches, summons and finds a herd. Between chosen and nuclear family, friendship and core relationships, it’s all about the people who accompany us through the nights, across continents and through troubled water, who tear down arenas and walls and run with us into the ocean.

Language:
German

Title in German:
Stierhunger

Pre-order here:
https://www.fva.de/Buecher/Fruehjahr-2027/Stierhunger.html

Published on:
08.03.2027

Publisher:
Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt

Agency:
zoraLit

Cover:
Rosa Bonheur: “The Highland Raid”