In 1983 Sten Nadolny published the novel Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit, the discovery of slowness. It tells the life of the polar explorer John Franklin as the story of a slow man. In the novel his slowness proves to be a strength. A slow man can afford to wait, because he must wait anyway. An excerpt had already won Nadolny the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1980. The book drew wide interest in Germany.