Yuko Kuhn: Onigiri

One year after the publication of her critically acclaimed debut novel "Onigiri", Yuko Kuhn is coming to the Pasinger Fabrik for a reading, where a circle closes. In 2010, as a young cultural manager, she curated her first of many projects with the Japanese Butoh dancer Aya Irizuki and Doris Dörrie in order to find her way to writing after many years through her encounter with the filmmaker.

About the novel:

Yuko Kuhn uses memories and conversations, photos and letters to develop her autofictional German-Japanese mother-daughter story between the present and the past. She sensitively traces how mother Keiko slips from silent acquiescence and speechlessness into senile dementia and how daughter Aki learns to deal with it lovingly. A plea for understanding across generations and cultures and for the power of memories.

"Full of warmth and intensity, Yuko Kuhn writes about two worlds: Japan and Germany, mother and daughter, rich and poor, old and young - and about herself in the middle of it all. Beautiful to cry about." Doris Dörrie

A book with a strong pull... I couldn't stop reading it... A very tender, very beautiful book. Elke Heidenreich

Yuko Kuhn was born in Munich in 1983. She studied cultural economics in Passau and Aix-en-Provence. She started writing in 2019. She lives in Munich with her husband and three children.

Masako Ohta is a pianist, sound performer and composer. Trained in Tokyo, she moves between classical and contemporary music, improvisation and performative formats, for which she was awarded the City of Munich's Music Prize, among others.

Musical accompaniment: Masako Ohta on the taishōgoto (electric box zither)

Conversation: Ruth Geiersberger