Broder

Reading and moderated conversation with Dörte Hansen

Moderation: Julia Westlake

"Only one person counts on the farm - the son who stays. But the others, those left behind, the second, third, fourth sons and daughters who don't count, remain part of the herd, whether they want to or not. Because they grew up with large animals, know their breath and their roar, still carry the smell of milk and manure on them. Because they grew up believing in the old, unjust order: father, son, and holy farm - it has always been this way."

These are sentences that electrify immediately. Sentences that make clear at once that Dörte Hansen is no romantic chronicler of rural life, nor does she ridicule the countryside from a position of expose. No, she takes it seriously. And she shows - as in her bestseller "Mittagsstunde" - that structural change in rural areas concerns us all.

A family conflict is brewing. On the surface, the ultra-modern, industrialized model farm is still thriving. It has always been among the best and yet - despite all the machinery - it's getting into trouble. When Broder Bahnsen returns home after years away, while his twin brother Henning, only a few minutes older and therefore favored by inheritance law, slowly loses control, disaster looms. Doubts about this form of animal husbandry grow, faith in growth enters crisis, humans and animals reach their limits and calamity strikes.

Dörte Hansen was an NDR editor in Hamburg for many years before making a radical break, leaving her position, and turning to writing. Today she is one of Germany's most successful authors. Each of her books has been a bestseller and simultaneously praised by major critics - from Süddeutsche Zeitung to ZEIT. A rare and welcome phenomenon.