Photography by Frederike Wetzels.
German bestselling author Caroline Wahl achieved what many authors only dream of. Her third novel “Die Assistentin“ (“The Assistant”) debuted on August 28, 2025, and reached number one on bestseller lists, while simultaneously, on September 4, 2025, the film adaptation of her debut novel “22 Bahnen” (“22 Lengths”) premiered in cinemas.
At just 30 years old, such success should have been cause for celebration. Instead, it triggered a backlash, one that reveals far more about our society’s relationship with successful women than it does about literature.
“Die Assistentin” deliberately courts controversy. The novel exposes toxic power structures within the publishing industry, particularly focusing on the literary scene itself. Wahl plays cleverly with speculation about whether her fictional publisher mirrors the real Zurich-based publisher where she once worked as an assistant – an experience that drove her to begin writing. She seemingly wanted to create a stir in the literary world and she certainly got her wish.
Image Courtesy of Rowohlt Verlag GmbH.
The firestorm that erupted wasn’t really about her books’ content or even their literary merits. Instead, critics seized on everything except the actual literature: her privilege, her success, her audacity to openly discuss her disappointment at not being longlisted for the German Book Prize, her lifestyle choices, even her voice and appearance.
The subtext became impossible to ignore. This wasn’t literary criticism, but criticism of a successful young woman who refuses to apologize for her achievements.
Critics argue that Wahl lacks the “authentic” experience to write about social struggles outside her own experience, as depicted in “22 Bahnen,” given her own comfortable lifestyle. This concern strikes at the heart of what fiction is: humans imagining lives beyond their own experience. That’s precisely what fiction allows and has always allowed. Think of Frank Schätzing, Cornelia Funke, Juli Zeh and Sebastian Fitzek.
To be clear: the discussion of privileged authors writing about social struggles outside their own experience for profit is a legitimate ethical and literary question that deserves serious consideration. The quality of Wahl’s approach to fiction writing is also a legitimate question, but that’s not what the controversy actually seems to be about.
Photography by Frederike Wetzels.
The real issue here? How the criticism of Caroline Wahl revealed something deeper about how society responds to successful women. When Wahl openly admits to loving fast cars and enjoying her financial success, she commits the ultimate feminine transgression: refusing to apologize for her achievements.
This reaction reveals the impossible tightrope successful women must walk. They are expected to gracefully absorb criticism, not fight back with honest indignation. They can have money, but mustn’t spend it visibly. They can achieve recognition, but must downplay their accomplishments. These standards, however, seem rarely to apply to their male counterparts in the industry.
Photography by Frederike Wetzels.
The Caroline Wahl controversy has little to do with books and everything to do with policing successful women. It’s about a cultural refusal to let women succeed without constant justification, humiliation, and demands for appropriate gratitude. We can continue this destructive pattern of building women up only to tear them down when they become too successful, too visible, too unapologetically ambitious. Or we can choose to celebrate female achievement as loudly as we celebrate male success.
Every attack on Caroline Wahl’s success is an attack on the possibility of female ambition itself. Let the woman drive her Ferrari. Better yet, let’s create a world where female success is as uncontroversial as it should be.
The Caroline Wahl case ultimately reveals that, despite decades of progress, we’re still profoundly uncomfortable with successful women who refuse to dim their light. The question is simple: are we ready to change that?