Literarisches Lichtenberg: Ein Erinnerungsabend mit der Schriftstellerin Katja Lange-Müller

The multi-award-winning author Katja Lange-Müller returns to a place that played a formative role in her life for a reading and a discussion: what is now the Evangelische Krankenhaus Königin Elisabeth Herzberge (KEH) in Berlin-Lichtenberg.

Free admission!

Lange-Müller grew up in Lichtenberg as the daughter of SED politician Inge Lange. After being forced to leave school at age 16 for “anti-socialist” behavior, she worked for six years as a nursing assistant at what was then the Specialized Hospital for Neurology and Psychiatry. It was during her night shifts there that she produced her first literary works. In 1984, she moved to West Berlin and is now considered one of the most renowned German-language writers.

At the event, Lange-Müller will read, among other things, from “Manchmal kommt der Tod auf Latschen” (Sometimes Death Comes in Slippers), a story about everyday life on a geriatric ward, as well as from her novel “Drehtür” (Revolving Door). Both texts draw on experiences of helping others and working in the nursing profession, thereby connecting back to a central aspect of her own life.
The subsequent discussion will focus on Lange-Müller’s biographical experiences in the GDR, her years in Lichtenberg, writing in East and West Germany, and the question of how lived experiences are transformed into literature. The hospital itself will also be a topic of discussion: as a workplace, a place of memory, and a literary space.

Moderator: Journalist Jana Simon (Die Zeit, among others)

Venue:
KEH Evangelical Queen Elisabeth Hospital, Herzberge
Building 22, Ballroom, 1st Floor
Herzbergstraße 79
10365 Berlin

The event is being held in cooperation with the KEH Queen Elisabeth Protestant Hospital Herzberge and the Berlin Commissioner for Coming to Terms with the SED Dictatorship (BAB) and is part of the BAB event series “My Neighborhood: Stories of Divided Berlin.”