In the organizer's words:

The new books by Agnieszka Lessmann and Peter Rosenthal are about remembering - but also about the work involved. In Lessmann's autobiographically tinged novel Aga, which takes a Polish-Jewish family to the land of the perpetrators,

the silence of the survivors becomes the burden of the descendants. In Rosenthal, the narrator cycles across the Rhine every Thursday and talks about his encounters as a doctor and the memories that these encounters trigger.

Agnieszka Lessmann, who grew up in Poland, Israel and Germany, lives as a freelance writer in Cologne. She is the author of eight radio plays and has been nominated for the Prix Europa and several times for the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden. Her first volume of poetry was published in 2020 under the title Fluchtzustand. Her poems and stories have been published in anthologies and magazines. Her work has been supported by numerous scholarships. Her novel Aga was published by Gans Verlag in 2025.

Peter Rosenthal, born in Arad (Romania), lives in Cologne. He works as a doctor in Ehrenfeld. As an author, he has published Entlang der Venloer Straße (2003), In die Zeit fallen (2013) and 33 Gedichte(2017). He also published Venedig ist auch nicht viel größer als Ehrenfeld (2017) and was co-author and co-producer of the experimental short film Tigersprung (2017) about the Ehrenfeld cycling world champion Albert Richter and his manager Ernst Isidor Berliner. He has published Ehrenfeld Alphabet (2018), Impfnovelle (2022) and Donnerstags (2025) in the parasitenpresse.

Moderation: Adrian Kasnitz