Martin Fabi was born November 1, 1942 in Durrbach, Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) in a family of Transylvanian Saxons.
The novel tells the story of a youth from Hermannstadt (Sibiu) in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania), Leo Auberg, who is deported at the age of 17 to a Soviet forced labor concentration camp in Nowo-Gorlowka (Novogorlovka, Ukraine, now incorporated in Gorlovka) and spends five years of his life there.