Die strahlenden Hände

Die strahlenden Hände is the hundredth novel by Heinz G. Konsalik, published in 1984, at a time when the author was already one of the most widely read German writers of popular literature. The novel deals with the theme of miraculous healing, but also with the question of the boundary between hope, faith, suggestion, medicine and the possible exploitation of human suffering.

At the center of the plot is Corinna, a woman from Münsterland who is seen by the sick as a miraculous healer. Her “shining hands” become a symbol of hope for people whom official medicine can no longer or does not know how to help. The desperate, the seriously ill, families seeking salvation and those who want to believe that healing is possible gather around her. But this very hope also provokes strong controversy: some see Corinna as a gifted woman who helps people, while others consider her a dangerous illusion, a threat to medical authority or a phenomenon that needs to be exposed.

Konsalik builds a tension between the rational and the irrational, between medical science and popular belief in miracles. The novel not only depicts Corinne's unusual gift, but also the social reaction to it: admiration, suspicion, envy, fear and the desire to turn someone else's suffering into a sensation. Die strahlenden Hände is thus a melodramatic story of healing, but also a novel about people who, faced with illness and helplessness, seek the last hope where reason ceases to provide answers.