: Hauser shifts from the "deportee-maker" to the deported, a narrative device that critiques the dehumanization inherent in modern migration policies.
In his 2022 novel Hausers Ausflug (Hauser’s Outing), Steffen Mensching delivers a biting dystopian satire that transforms a technical solution for migration into a personal nightmare for its creator. Set in the near future of 2029, the narrative follows David Hauser, a cynical entrepreneur who has grown wealthy by developing "AIRDROP" capsules—high-tech "repatriation boxes" designed to air-drop rejected asylum seekers back into their home regions with clinical efficiency. Steffen Mensching Hausers Ausflug rar
Mensching’s work serves as a "grandioses Kammerspiel" (grandiose chamber play), challenging readers to evaluate their own moral standing on global migration. By trapping the architect of a heartless system within that very system, Mensching illustrates that the "solutions" we design for others are often the ones we are least prepared to endure ourselves. Hausers Ausflug - Steffen Mensching | Wallstein Verlag : Hauser shifts from the "deportee-maker" to the
: The title itself is a sardonic play on the term "asylum tourism," reframing a forced deportation as a mere "outing" or "excursion". The story’s central irony unfolds when Hauser wakes
The story’s central irony unfolds when Hauser wakes up inside one of his own capsules. Stripped of his identity and carrying forged papers for a man named Walid Said, he is parachuted into a desolate, mountainous wasteland—likely Syria. Mensching uses this "froschperspektive" (frog's-eye view) to force a man who profited from anonymity and distance to confront the physical and psychological reality of displacement. Key themes explored in the work include: