Frau Rosalie von Tümmler is a woman who has learned to bear the silence of the years with order, moderation and the acceptance called “maturity”. Until the strange game her body plays on her begins… First a small symptom, then a joy mixed with hope: Rosalie believes that nature has given her an unexpected gift of “youth again”. This change awakens not only her body, but also her heart, suddenly opening up possibilities of life that had seemed too late.

But in the shadow of every miracle lies a truth. What Rosalie thinks is a “rebirth” may actually be a harbinger of another reality. The cautious words of the doctors, the silence in the house and the growing unrest increase the tension on the fine line of desire, self-deception and fate.

The Betrayed Woman is Thomas Mann’s delicately constructed narrative, both shocking and merciless: Coming of age, femininity, desire and death, all united in a single story, in the fluttering of a single heart. Mann leaves the reader with the question: Is it life, the body or one’s own hope that deceives one?