The gleaming, empty surfaces of Vincenzo Latronico’s novel Perfection (2025) distract from its underlying critique. The bestselling novel follows Anna and Tom, a pair of millennial expat web designers who move to Berlin in the 2010s, charting their disenchantment with the city and their lives in it. It is also, according to its author, a warning about a life without politics. “Ultimately, if one were to sum up Perfection as a morality play, one would say that it is an exploration of what happens when you refuse to have politics in your life,” he told HEIST.
HEIST is a worker-owned online magazine, founded by writers and editors who after years working across Berlin's media landscape believed something essential was missing.
Anyone living here has felt a growing gap between the city as it actually is and the version being served up by mainstream outlets. We experienced that disconnect firsthand. We saw political censorship shape coverage decisions and felt the weight of billionaire ownership land directly on our work. It reached a point where we could either keep going along with it, or try to build something better.
That's why we created HEIST.
And look at you: scrolling, clicking, squinting at blurred text just to get a little further. If you'll go to that much effort to read HEIST, you can surely give us one email. That's the whole price, and the rest of the story is right behind it.
Real journalism costs money. We commission the hard-hitting, well-reported, long-form work everyone wants to read but nobody seems to publish anymore.
The future of this city is still in the balance. We intend to be part of that struggle. We hope that you'll join us.
