Literatursommer SH 2026: Reading by Cécile Wajsbrot

For centuries, humans have dreamed of flight. A dream that carries with it the danger of falling. In May 1961, a plane crashes in the Algerian desert. No one survives. The narrator recalls a friend of her parents whom she met as a child. Each time the woman returned, she brought a hint of adventure into the child's life. One day, the woman who was a flight attendant on that flight never came back. Her fate has haunted the narrator for years like an unhealed wound. Yet with each attempt to approach this mystery, she feels she is entering forbidden territory. In an artful manner, Cécile Wajsbrot weaves together the search for the causes of the plane crash with essayistic passages into a polyphonic chorus in her new novel.

Cécile Wajsbrot, born in Paris in 1954, writes novels, essays, and radio plays. She translates from English (including Virginia Woolf) and from German (including Marcel Beyer, Peter Kurzeck). Both her literary work and her translation work have been honoured with numerous awards. She lives alternately in Paris and Berlin.

Moderator: Caren Gäbel

Organizer: Literaturhaus Schleswig-Holstein