evental

Judith Hermann - I Want to Go Back in Time

took place · 29 Sep 2026

DAI Heidelberg, Germany

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Judith Hermann - I Want to Go Back in Time — DAI Heidelberg, Heidelberg
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Judith Hermann: Happiness Is Always the Moment Before - 40th Freiburg Literary Conversations: Opening Reading and Work Survey with Insa Wilke
Wed, 4 Nov 2026 · Historisches Kaufhaus, Freiburg im Breisgau →
Description was written before the event

"My grandfather's life is an interfamilial cold case," says Judith Hermann. She follows the traces of her grandfather, who was stationed in Poland for the SS during World War II; she interweaves her writing with his long-denied history and the family's relentless silence. From Poland, she travels on to her sister in Naples and explores the remembering and forgetting of subsequent generations.

In subtle tones, Judith Hermann traces what has been repressed, the gaps - what remains untold; those who remain silent; also our society's. At the same time, she tells of how fragile we are in arranging our lives.

Judith Hermann's debut Sommerhaus, später (1998) received extraordinary resonance. In 2003 came the collection of stories Nichts als Gespenster; individual stories were adapted for film. Her work has been widely awarded. For Wir hätten uns alles gesagt, based on the Frankfurt Poetics Lectures of 2022, Judith Hermann received the Wilhelm Raabe Literary Prize.