The aim of this paper is to analyse and interprete the prose text "Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen" by the young, German-speaking writer who as a child fled from the civil war in Sri Lanka. The paper provides an analysis of the contingency of language signs (like homeland, descent, native language, identity) which is a function of the experience of flight, exile, and live in the globalized and electronic media-dominated world. The central role in the novel is played by the relation between death and literary language and its communicative and perception function.