Sanditz - Lukas Rietzschel

Reading and conversation with Lukas Rietzschel, hosted by Andreas Platthaus

"Sanditz", the title of Lukas Rietzschel's new novel, is a small town on the fringes of Germany. There the author weaves the story of the Wenzel family together with the lives of Sanditz's residents into a sweeping panorama of German history - from the end of the GDR to the present day, from the occupation of the local Stasi headquarters to a volunteer fighting in Ukraine, from an officer and a civil rights activist to a local journalist, an early retiree, a dreamer, and an archivist.

It is a novel about rise and decline, friendship and family, about the longing for belonging and the desire for freedom.

Lukas Rietzschel was born in 1994 in Räckelwitz in eastern Saxony. His debut novel "Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen" (2018) was a major success and was adapted for the cinema.