Kafka Band plays Kafka plus reading: Jaroslav Rudiš presents his new novel "Wo die Toten sprechen"

Reading, conversation and concert

Wo die Toten sprechen
Jaroslav Rudiš
Host: Andreas Platthaus

Timed to coincide with the Czech Republic's guest-of-honour appearance at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Jaroslav Rudiš publishes his new novel "Wo die Toten sprechen". Lorenzo, Caspar and Miss Detroit - three friends somewhere between midlife and life-weariness - set off on a journey through the heart of Central Europe. Not by train, as Rudiš fans might expect, but in an old Saab. In the boot: the bones of a Nazi war criminal, stolen from a Berlin cemetery to keep them out of the hands of looting Reichsbürger extremists. What starts as an absurd mission turns into a road trip across graveyards and into the past. Lorenzo tries to write a poem about dead European poets on the back seat, Miss Detroit dreams of becoming a cemetery botanist, and Caspar thinks back to his great-uncle, who died tragically as a child during the war and has haunted the family ever since. With every kilometre driven, the three grow closer and hunger for an answer to the question that grows louder at every grave: what do the dead say when you listen?

Short interval

20:15
Concert
Kafka Band plays Kafka

In November 2013, Kafka Band made their debut at Literaturhaus Stuttgart with a programme based on Franz Kafka's unfinished novel "The Castle". Many concerts across German-speaking countries and Europe followed, along with two theatre productions in Bremen, various music videos and - again in collaboration with Literaturhaus Stuttgart - two further albums drawing on Kafka's "Amerika" and "The Trial".

Now the band around writer Jaroslav Rudiš and musician and comic-book artist Jaromir 99 is back on tour. Kafka Band also features some of the most acclaimed Czech musicians around, including members of Priessnitz, Umakart, Letní kapela and others.