Charly Hübner & Caren Miosga - Uwe Johnson. Jahrestage – aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl x Harbour Front Literaturfestival Hamburg

A few months before the Berlin Wall was built, in April 1961, Gesine Cresspahl—a single mother—emigrated from Mecklenburg to New York with her young daughter Marie and went on to live her life in her new adopted home. But in the historic years of 1967–68, everything suddenly changes, and events come thick and fast: The U.S. Air Force attacks Vietnam, Martin Luther King is assassinated, violent clashes erupt in Black neighborhoods, and students rebel in the U.S. and throughout the Western world. The novel tells of all this. And at the same time, it recounts how Gesine Cresspahl tells her now ten-year-old daughter, day after day for an entire year, stories about her own family history in the fictional small town of Jerichow in Mecklenburg: about the Weimar Republic and the Nazis, about the Soviet occupation zone and the early years of the GDR. All of this is repeatedly interrupted by an omnipresent, dramatic present—with daily news from the *New York Times*: the current events in the U.S. and around the world.

The FAZ wrote about the audiobook edition on which this event is based, noting that it is “not the complacent consumption of a classic,” but rather “an engagement with a challenging, monumental work”; Charly Hübner is “the ideal choice” for this. This performance, too, does not seek a quick summary, but rather a way into Johnson’s narrative flow: characters, episodes, conversations, memories, reports, New York Times articles, and everyday events from 1967–1968, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, student protests, and preparations for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Caren Miosgastudied history and Slavic studies in Hamburg, worked in radio and television, and became known to a wide audience as the host of “Tagesthemen.” Today she hosts the ARD political talk show “Caren Miosga.”

Charly Hübnerwas born in Neustrelitz, studied acting at the “Ernst Busch” Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, and has performed on numerous stages, most recently and primarily at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. He is known from film and television, including the series “Polizeiruf 110.” He has received numerous awards, including the Golden Camera and the Adolf Grimme Prize.

Ninon Glogeris a pianist and professor of piano at the Lübeck University of Music. She performs as a chamber musician and interpreter of contemporary music.

Uwe Johnsonwas born in 1934 in Kammin, Pomerania, and died in 1984 in Sheerness-on-Sea. He is considered one of the most important writers of the postwar period. *Jahrestage* is Uwe Johnson’s magnum opus—an attempt to bring together society, life, and politics and to paint a picture of an entire era.