The Pigeon

The Pigeon (German: Die Taube) is a 1987 novella by German writer Patrick Süskind. Taking place in a single day, the story follows a solitary Parisian bank security guard who undergoes an existential crisis when a pigeon roosts in front of his one-room apartment's door, prohibiting him entrance to his private sanctuary. The book was Süskind's follow-up to his nine-year bestselling first novel, Perfume and drew comparisons to the work of Franz Kafka and Edgar Allan Poe.