Michael Ende

Momo lives outside a big city, within the ruins of an amphitheatre. She owns nothing but what she finds or receives as a present but she has an extraordinary gift: She is a wonderful listener. One day, however, the grey gentlemen enter the stage. They are after the precious lifetime of people – and Momo is the only one able to stop them. The unkempt little heroine has nothing but a flower in her hand and a tortoise tucked under her arm to fight the vast army of the “grey gentlemen”.
It is the enigma “time” itself that this book is about, an enigma that fascinates thoughtful children and also adults who have not forgotten how to be astonished about things that appear normal. A fairytale? One could call it that if one understands the term in the sense of the Romantic Age. Day and dream flow into each other in a poetic way. Maybe something like a novel? Let’s say: A fairytale-novel.