Jaroslav Rudiš

Jaroslav Rudiš reads from his new novel "Where the Dead Speak" (Luchterhand) - just before the Frankfurt Book Fair and with an eye toward the Czech Republic as this year's guest country.

The novel is a rapid, laconic odyssey through Central Europe: Lorenzo, Caspar, and Miss Detroit drive in a dilapidated Saab from cemetery to cemetery. Lorenzo wants to write a doctoral thesis on dead poets, Miss Detroit dreams of becoming a cemetery botanist and speaking with the dead through flowers, the nearly blind Caspar thinks of his father and his deceased pub friends. With each kilometer, the three friends draw closer together - and hear the voices of the dead more clearly. The book tells of friendship, transience, and what still holds us together on this crumbling continent.

Jaroslav Rudiš is a recipient of the Prize of the Literary Houses and author of "Winterberg's Last Journey," which was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. In 2023, "Christmas in Prague" was published, a collaboration with illustrator Jaromír 99, with whom he previously created the graphic novel "Alois Nebel."

Moderation: Marion Brasch. With the kind support of the Hamburg Department of Culture and Media.