Heimsuchung

Reading and moderated discussion

A house by a lake in the Mark region. Nearly a century of German history. Two artists bring one of the most significant contemporary German-language novels to the stage for the first time together.

Jenny Erpenbeck, winner of the International Booker Prize, ranks among the most important literary voices of our time. In her award-winning novel "Heimsuchung", she tells not the story of a single family, but the story of a place. A summer house by the lake becomes a silent witness to German history. Generations come and go, owners change, lives begin and end. People love and lose, flee, remain silent and remember. From their fates emerges a compelling panorama of the 20th century, in which personal life stories and historical upheavals are inextricably interwoven.

With great poetic power and impressive historical precision, Erpenbeck unfolds a narrative about memory and transience, homeland and dispossession, guilt and responsibility, chance and fate. "Heimsuchung" is now regarded as one of the most significant contemporary German-language novels. For many school-leavers, the book remains connected to this year's German language exams. The Harbour Front Literature Festival now offers the opportunity to rediscover the novel, free from exam pressure and as what it has long become: a modern classic of German-language literature.

Martina Gedeck, one of Germany's most renowned actresses, lends her voice to the novel and reads selected passages. Through her refined, nuanced interpretation, Erpenbeck's poetic language becomes directly tangible. In the subsequent discussion, author and actress meet to speak about the novel's creation, its international impact, and its surprising relevance. A special occasion for this: only recently