Hendrik Otremba liest aus »Der Gräber«

Oswalth Kerzenrauch, known as “the Gravedigger,” does not die. And so he outlives everyone he has ever loved, including his daughter Luzie, whom he cares for until she reaches a ripe old age. He has weathered the turmoil of World War III as well as the final destruction of flora and fauna. When the last inhabitants of Earth leave the inhospitable planet for Nektar II, he remains behind in the ruins of Berlin with the few who were left behind. In a post-human world, a contradictory idyll emerges there amid the rubble. The lonelier he becomes, the more he loses himself in his most beautiful and his most terrible memories.
But what does the end of the world mean for someone who is doomed to outlive it? Hendrik Otremba’s fourth novel tells, in a tale rich in contrasts, the story of a simple man born in our era and stranded in infinity. He knows of the love of life and of people, but also of the horrors of civilization—and, in the face of its end, asks what will remain of us when no one is left to remember us. Amid heart-wrenching memories of past loves and nerve-wracking descriptions of political, social, and ecological collapse, Hendrik Otremba achieves the unthinkable: he finds a language for a future we cannot even conceive of, a vocabulary for the post-Anthropocene.

The Author:
Hendrik Otremba, born in 1984 in Recklinghausen, is a writer, visual artist, and singer with the band Messer. He also works in Germany and Switzerland as an instructor in creative writing and occasionally as a curator. As a freelance journalist, he writes sporadically about music. His paintings are published as album covers and in various magazines, and are exhibited.

His debut novel, *Über uns der Schaum* (Verbrecher Verlag), was published in 2017, followed in 2019 by his second novel, *Kachelbads Erbe*. His third novel, *Benito*, was published by MÄRZ in 2022, followed in 2023 by his poetry collection *Wüstungen, Nebel*. At the same time, his first solo album, *Riskantes Manöver*, was released. With the band Messer, he has released six albums to date, most recently *Kratermusik* in 2024.