Lukas Rietzschel »Sanditz«

A novel about upheaval and decline, the success and failure of rebellion, friendship and family in revolutionary times, about the desire to belong and the longing for freedom.

Sanditz, a small town on the edge of the republic. Once obscured by smoke from the chimneys of the flat glass factory, today surrounded by the water of the flooded open-cast mines. Old officers, civil rights activists, organ builders, tile collectors, local journalists, self-proclaimed resistance fighters, dreamers, early retirees, children, lovers, cagey archivists and the Wenzel family all live here. Lukas Rietzschel warmly weaves the stories of the Wenzel family and the Sanditz townspeople into a panorama of German history from the end of the GDR to the present day, from the occupation of the local Stasi headquarters to the struggle of a volunteer in Ukraine, from slaving away on West German construction sites in the post-reunification period to the isolated island existence of the years of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lukas Rietzschel, born in 1994 in Räckelwitz in eastern Saxony. His debut novel "Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen" (2018) was a bestseller that was made into a movie. His second novel "Raumfahrer" was published in 2021. Lukas Rietzschel's novels and plays have received numerous awards, including the Gellert Prize, the Saxon Literature Prize and the "Text & Sprache" literature prize.

Before the event begins at 5.30 p.m., free guided tours of the new permanent exhibition "You are part of history. Germany since 1945" in the House of History. Registration HERE.

In cooperation with the Haus der Geschichte