In Case of Loss reveals Seiler's essays to be different to, but on a par with, his fiction and poetry. Beautifully anecdotal and associative, they throw a light on literature and his East German background, including the Soviet-era mining community he grew up in, and are full of insight, humanity and an attention to overlooked objects and lives.

Poet, novelist and essayist Lutz Seiler was born in Gera, Thuringia, in 1963 and today lives in Wilhelmshorst, near Berlin, and in Stockholm. His writing has won many prizes, including the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, the Ingeborg Bachmann and the German Book Prize, and been translated into twenty-five languages.