For a long time, she avoided boys, because Miriam Davoudvandi knew that sooner or later every guy would see the inside of her apartment: the shabby social housing block surrounded by single-family homes, the cluttered rooms, the worn-out bathroom. The shame of having nothing to offer and not belonging had shaped her at least since she started school – and it remains part of her to this day.

She has since achieved upward social mobility and now earns more than her parents ever did. Her conclusion: money can indeed make you very happy. But at what price? And what traces have her experiences left behind? Honest and moving, Miriam Davoudvandi recounts what it means to be poor in Germany. She looks not only at the obvious sites of poverty, but also at aspects such as dating, friendships, starting a family, and mental health; at the significance of the television set and what it means to be the first in the family to attend university. And she shows why the poor are disadvantaged even in death.

Poverty may be measurable. But numbers do not help us understand what poverty feels like or what it does to people in the long term. All the more important, then, to hear Miriam Davoudvandi’s story. She also speaks for all those who have not yet had a voice.