Series: Berolinenses

In conversation with Annett Gröschner

With the three novels "Der Sandkasten" (2022), "Krähen im Park" (2023) and "Innerstädtischer Tod" (2024), Christoph Peters presents a precise literary picture of the times - a triptych about the failure of the modern individual in the face of the impositions of the present. The trilogy, loosely based on Wolfgang Koeppen's famous post-war trilogy of failure, condenses personal crises, social shifts and political speechlessness into a metropolitan resonance chamber of disillusionment. The urban reality of Berlin serves as a catalyst and as a stage on which individuality, political awareness and social cohesion disintegrate. Peters is not only guided by Koeppen's aesthetic means, but also transfers his central motif of failure to our time and to Berlin: the focus is no longer on the ruins of the past, but on the gradual implosion of a saturated, disoriented present. In conversation, Christoph Peters and Annett Gröschner discuss the multi-layered tensions of contemporary writing in and about Berlin.