Hanns-Josef Ortheil: "Schwebebahnen"

In the organizer's words:

The fact that Hanns-Josef Ortheil became one of the most prolific writers of our time is nothing short of a miracle. For much of his early childhood was literally speechless. His parents had lost four sons in the war before he was born. As a result of these traumatic events, his mother fell silent and her only surviving son followed her into speechlessness when he was three years old. A central means of communication between mother and son was playing the piano, and Hanns-Josef Ortheil almost became a pianist too. In his new novel, Hanns-Josef Ortheil takes us back to the Wuppertal of his childhood at the end of the 1950s. There he describes the drama of the highly gifted child and his friendship with the German-Italian girl "Mücke" so insightfully and vividly that after reading it you are inclined to say: "I am a Wuppertaler" - just as reading James Joyce makes you a Dubliner or Elena Ferrante a Neapolitan.

Moderation: Denis Scheck

Price information:

Pupils and students as well as wheelchair users and severely disabled persons with a B in their ID card are entitled to a discount. Their accompanying persons require their own ticket, which is charged at full price.