"The Twelfth Chair": Eleven thinkers argue all night, and none of them wins

Berlin, September 14, 2026

Rumi's most famous verse was not written by Rumi

A Berlin novel depicts eleven thinkers debating with one another throughout the night. Two of his best-known lines have been proven to be by someone else. An album with thirteen tracks was released at the same time.

The four-line poem that appears on postcards and in obituaries--and is attributed to Jalal ad-Din Rumi--was not written by him. It can be traced back to a Sufi who died two centuries earlier, and the mix-up can be attributed to a calligraphic piece in Konya that a librarian attributed to Rumi without verifying its authenticity.

Likewise, the statement that "if God did not exist, everything would be permitted" does not appear in this form in Dostoevsky's work. Jean-Paul Sartre was demonstrably the first to attribute it to Dostoevsky, and he declared it the starting point of his philosophy.

Salih Daglar explores both cases in his debut novel *The Twelfth Chair*, published on September 11, 2026. And he didn't have to invent either of them.

THE BOOK

A forty-two-year-old man has an accident on his way to his regular bar and is unconscious for twelve minutes. During those twelve minutes, he spends the night sitting at a round table in a Berlin jazz club. Twelve chairs, eleven occupied. The twelfth seat is for him.

Socrates asks questions. Diogenes provokes. Epicurus calculates. Confucius speaks of order and responsibility. Rumi speaks of love and separation. Machiavelli speaks of power. Marx speaks of social relations. Schopenhauer speaks of desire. Nietzsche speaks of self-overcoming. Dostoevsky speaks of guilt. Sartre speaks of freedom.

He lacks nothing. He has an apartment, a job, enough money to last eight months, and four hundred and six contacts in his phone--two of whom he could call. His mother lives two hundred and ten kilometers away and hasn't been able to go shopping on her own since February. And there's one thing he hasn't talked about in six years.

For eighteen rounds, the eleven of them pick him apart. The book's rule is strict and is never broken: they give no advice, assign no task, and no one takes a side. They argue, interrupt each other, laugh, and hold each other's own words against them.

In the end, he is offered the empty chair. Not as a reward, but as a responsibility. Whoever sits there can no longer hide behind the thoughts of others.

An appendix of sources indicates for each passage whether it is a quotation, a paraphrase, a reconstruction, or an uncertain attribution.

THE ALBUM

An independent instrumental album of the same title was created in parallel with the book. Thirteen tracks spanning dark jazz, progressive avant-garde, and Turkish, Arabic, and Armenian soundscapes.

Twelve tracks form the circle. "The Call" stands apart as the thirteenth.

Daglar releases music under the name Artbeatfeastverse.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Salih Daglar, born in 1984, lives in Berlin and makes music. "The Twelfth Chair" is his first novel and the first volume in a series. The bar where the book is set actually exists. He has been a regular there for twenty years.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Salih Daglar
The Twelfth Chair
Eleven Thinkers, One Night, and the Question of Whether It's Enough
Novel, Volume 1

Hardcover, 220 pages
29.99 EUR
ISBN 978-3-6967-2713-0
BoD . Books on Demand
Published on September 11, 2026

Available in bookstores as well as from BoD, Amazon, Thalia, and Dussmann.

Book and album:
https://artbeatfeastverse.com/der-zwoelfte-stuhl-elf-denker-eine-nacht-und-die-frage-ob-es-reicht/

PRESS CONTACT

Salih Daglar
kontakt@salihdaglar.de

Review copies are available through the publisher. An excerpt, a cover image in print resolution, and an author photo are available upon request.

Artbeatfeastverse
Storkowerstr. 139B
Berlin 10407
Germany

https://artbeatfeastverse.com/salihdaglar/

Herr Salih Daglar
03036746895

kontakt@salihdaglar.de

Salih Daglar, born in 1984, lives in Berlin and makes music. "The Twelfth Chair" is his first novel and the first volume in a series. The bar where the book is set actually exists. He has been a regular there for twenty years.

This release was published on openPR.