Five Minutes Before the World Was Made

A humble historian inherits a billionaire’s fortune, plunging him into a gripping journey of mystery, ambition, and self-discovery as he confronts the true cost of rewriting his own story.

Meet Georg Grissmann: a local historian whose aspirations take a dramatic turn when his mentor and institute director, Professor Krautmann, mysteriously disappears. Shortly thereafter, Georg’s world is upended one fateful night when a private detective reveals that the billionaire William Grissmann is on his deathbed in America. With no direct heirs, William has declared that the first Grissmann to arrive at his side will inherit his vast fortune. Unexpectedly, fate favors Georg, as he becomes the first to reach his dying relative. 

As he grapples with his newfound wealth, Georg’s encounter with Krautmann rekindles an ambition to reverse time and rewrite his own narrative. This twist sets off a whirlwind of introspection as Georg navigates the complexities of his inheritance and the emotional weight it carries. 

A beautifully crafted exploration tailored for readers who appreciate deep, reflective storytelling, Five Minutes Before the World Was Made captures the essence of longing for home and the ups and downs of unexpected fortune.

Wolf Christian Schröder was born in Bremen. He spent his childhood and youth in Kiel and Tübingen, later England. He then pursued a degree in Slavic Languages and Literature at the Free University of Berlin. He translated dramas from Russian and English. He wrote his own stage plays, receiving a commission from the Hamburg Schauspielhaus. Additional plays premiered in Hamburg, Hanover, Münster, Aachen, and Constance. He wrote the libretto for the musical "Die Liebe" at Ballhaus Ost, Berlin. His novel "Die Weissweintrinker" was published in 2020 by PalmArtPress, followed by his novel "Tapirgebein" in 2024. He received the Alfred Döblin Scholarship and a working scholarship from Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta, Starnberger See.

Dennis McCort  was born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey, the "mile square city" on the Hudson, in the shadow of Manhattan. He writes of his experiences growing up there in the postwar industrial era before gentrification in his memoir, A Kafkaesque Memoir: Confessions from the Analytic Couch. McCort is now retired from Syracuse University where he taught German language and literature over a long career. He has authored scholarly books on Swiss writer C.F. Meyer and on the influence of Zen on such Western writers as J.D. Salinger, R.M. Rilke and Thomas Merton (Going beyond the Pairs: The Coincidence of Opposites in German Romanticism, Zen and Deconstruction).