»Ich liebe den Alltag sehr« - Arno Schmidts Tagebücher 1957–62. Lesung mit Susanne Fischer und Jan Philipp Reemtsma

March 20, 2026 / 4 p.m. / Literature Café

LEIPZIG READS

Arno Schmidt's diaries were previously almost unknown. The author himself made it a point to include observations of everyday life in his novels and stories. So why keep a diary? - Just to record the daily routine in short form. But nightmares, disturbances from visitors, letters and various external demands - in a word: "Tinnef" - always forced him to write a few extra sentences. Susanne Fischer has now published Schmidt's diaries from 1957 to 1962 for the first time and provided excellent commentary. They show us surprising sides of the writer, who was born in Hamburg in 1914 and was one of the most influential in the Federal Republic of Germany: in unloved Darmstadt, when he moved to Bargfeld, which finally brought him the peace and quiet he longed for in the seclusion of northern Germany, with successes and disappointments, a marriage crisis and existential doubts about his own writing. There are flashes of literary interest, letters from readers are mentioned and sometimes even answered.

The literary scholar Jan Philipp Reemtsma has been championing Schmidt's life's work for decades and is one of its best connoisseurs. Together with the editor Susanne Fischer, Managing Director of the Arno Schmidt Foundation, he presents the edition.

Arno Schmidt's diaries from 1957-62, edited by Susanne Fischer, are published by Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin (777 p., 68 ).

Admission: 10,- / 7,- EUR ǀ Tickets at the Box Office or in advance online: https: //rausgegangen.de/locations/haus-des-buches/

Event in cooperation with the Arno Schmidt Foundation

Discounts are available for disabled persons and their accompanying person (only if listed on the disabled person's ID card), unemployed persons, schoolchildren and students (up to 35) as well as holders of the Leipzig Pass or a volunteer card, in each case only on presentation of the ID card).