In the organizer's words:

Queerness in the East German present, fears of the future and the pressure to be beautiful: Res Sigusch's "Unbegründete Ängste" is a touching and funny novel, which he will be presenting together with Ann Esswein at the BUCHBOX! in Kastanienallee.

Christian Lotz (30) is a queer single man living in a small town in Saxony. He meets his parents for a champagne breakfast every Sunday and works at the gym during the week. Muscular and good-looking - his mother raves that he looks like David Beckham in the early 2000s - he is inwardly plagued by insecurity and basically worries about everything: How does he look to others? Why can't he find the right man? What does the future hold in times of climate change, right-wing extremism and pandemics? And isn't he perhaps already terminally ill, as his daily internet searches would have him believe? His answer is always the greatest possible catastrophe. An existential fear grows in Christian that soon knows no cause. Only when his situation becomes obvious does he open up to his surroundings - and finds out: Fear shared is fear halved. And sometimes all it takes is a spark of courage.

"Res Sigusch's novel asks the big questions on a small scale. It's queer and funny, contemporary and clever. Highly recommended!" Markus Thielemann

Res Sigusch studied philosophy and literature at the Free University of Berlin. Until 2021, Res also devoted himself to studying literary writing at the Hildesheim Literature Institute and organized and moderated the event series "Delete this sentence: Sexism in the literary industry" on gender-specific discrimination, collective defensiveness and feminist alliances. Res has published various works of prose and debuted in 2024 with the novel "Essential Needs" published by Berlin Verlag. Dey lives in Berlin.

The event takes place in cooperation with Berlin Verlag.