Buchpremiere: Angelo Angelino Wemmje – VENUS CHICAGO

The introverted Joshua grows up with his three siblings in a small town in northern Germany. The family is an exotic foreign body in the middle-class neighborhood. The parents, two old hippies from the 1968 generation, organize meditation sessions on yogic flying in the front garden, while a Filipino healer pulls bloody worms out of patients in the living room.

When his father invites a supposedly extraterrestrial woman from the planet Venus into the family home, Joshua's world is turned upside down. Ona Odina, the mysterious, seductive woman from Venus, captivates the parents after her arrival with spiritual practices and abstruse wisdom. The family home is soon full of eccentrics and eccentricities, and an interplanetary commune emerges in the middle of the middle-class idyll. In the emotional chaos and the self-discovery trips of the adults, Joshua and his siblings are thrown back on themselves. Neglected by his parents, Joshua has only one choice: he has to find his own explanation for the crazy life on Earth, where cars become spaceships, an alien smokes menthol cigarettes and the stars want to abduct him.

Venus Chicago - a coming-of-age novel from the 90s with guest appearances by Super Nintendo, half grilled chickens from the supermarket parking lot and smoking indoors.

Moderator: Audrey Naline