Die Seligen oder die letzten Tage der Spezialdemokratie

In the organizer's words:

Book launch of the new novel by Martin M. Kohtes and Michael Kohtes. The authors in conversation with Claudia Dichter.

The fat years, reflected in a highly idiosyncratic portrait of customs and clans full of colorful characters and lively stories - eloquent, profound and screamingly funny. The protagonists of this novel, which is also unusual in formal terms, are two dissimilar brothers who experience astonishing things. Enjoying their existence in urban pop-modernity, they meet for a jour fixe in a night bar, where they air the memories of their rural childhood. Thus we find ourselves in the milieu of Rhenish-Catholic turnip farmers and landowners on the one hand, and among cokeheads, crooks and noctambulists on the other.

Michael Kohtes is a writer and journalist living in Cologne. He has published essayistic prose, poetry and most recently the diary collage "365 Days - Views from K." WDR audiences know him, among other things, as the long-standing presenter of the literary discussion program "Zeichen & Wunder". He has received various prizes and awards for his work.

Martin Maria Kohtes is a theater scholar and philologist. After studying in Berlin, Paris and New York, he taught in Cologne and Berlin. His publications include "Guerilla Theater" and "Besser schreiben". He now lives as an author in the Rhineland.

Claudia Dichter studied art history, German studies and philosophy in Aachen and Cologne. She has worked as an author and art critic at WDR since 1992 and has presented the culture magazine "Scala" on WDR5 since 2002. Since 2019, she has been the presenter of the cultural magazine "Resonanzen" on WDR3.

This event is a cooperation between the Literatur-in-Köln-Archiv (LiK) and the Klaus Bittner bookshop.

Price information:

Admission costs 8 euros, concessions 6 euros, 4 euros with a disabled pass. Tickets are available in advance from kölnticket. Remaining tickets may be available at the Box Office.