Navid Kermani »Sommer 24«

March 21, 2026 / 8 pm / Great Hall

LEIPZIG READS

What is it like when the familiar world dissolves, when what was normal yesterday no longer applies today? Navid Kermani captures this moment in a single summer: a friend who had recently gone astray politically has taken his own life. The wars are getting closer and the debates are getting shriller. His girlfriend thinks the narrator is a macho man, but this is by no means the worst accusation that shatters his self-image. In an inimitable way, Navid Kermani succeeds in understanding our present from its contradictions, reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable and, more importantly, enduring the truly irreconcilable. An existential, clear-sighted novel of our time. (Hanser 2026)

Navid Kermani, born in 1967, is a habilitated Orientalist and lives as a freelance writer in Cologne. He has been awarded the Kleist Prize, the Breitbach Prize, the Hölderlin Prize and the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, among others, for his work. In 2024 he received the Thomas Mann Prize. His most recent publications include "Das Alphabet bis S" (2024), "Israel: Eine Korrespondenz" (2023 with Natan Sznaider), "Jeder soll von da, wo er ist, einen Schritt näherkommen. Questions about God" (2022), "What is possible now. 33 political situations" (2022). In January 2025, his new children's book "Zuhause ist es am schönsten, sagte die linke Hand und hält sich an der Heizung fest" was published.

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

Event organized by Hanser Verlag and the Literaturhaus Leipzig