Heinrich Heine raved that the sky over Heligoland was “full of violins”. Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote “Das Lied der Deutschen” there, and August Strindberg married. Writers have always been drawn to the North Sea island. In the past few years, Isabel Bogdan has also repeatedly withdrawn there to write. The translator and author described her impressions in “Mein Helgoland”, which appeared in the beautiful mare series “Meine Insel”, in which Ulrike Draesner and Regula Venske also wrote about Hiddensee and Langeoog.
At the same time there is the book at Argon as an author’s reading in an unpretentious conversational tone: “You can just have one at the waffle here in peace” (1 mp3 CD, 3 hours, 27 minutes). It is much more than a travel guide, even if all attractions from the lobster booths to Lummenfelsen and Lange Anna to the dune are mentioned. Isabel Bogdan is primarily looking for the connection between being an island and writing: “Perhaps the clarity of the island of Helgoland will also help me develop my story. First of all, I have to know where it begins, where it ends and what the climax is. But where does one begin Island on? ” James Krüss, the best-known son of Heligoland, serves as the source of information for the poetological considerations that she rubs herself against and works off. Christoph Maria Herbst reads passages from his work with a North German sound.
“Ruslan from Marzahn” is the title of the second book by Sebastian Stuertz. Supported by a scholarship in the mare-Künstlerhaus and spoken by Shenja Lacher, it is only available as an audio original produced by Hörverlag (1 mp3 CD, 4 hours, 27 minutes). Lacher already lent his voice to Stuertz’s debut “The Iron Heart of Charlie Berg”. For “Ruslan from Marzahn” he fueled Stuertz with anecdotes about his Russian background. Like Lacher himself, Ruslan Blinow is an acting graduate from HMT Rostock. The life of the good-natured slob: out of control.
Large parts of the Russian Orthodox family turned their backs on him when they saw him naked on a Berlin stage. His wife Stasi left him for alcoholism. Now he is fighting to at least occasionally see their son Johnny. But all of his good intentions are inexorably reversed. “Ruslan from Marzahn” is pure boy slapstick, quite light and shallow, but read furiously by Shenja Lacher: “Where, where, where is the Vodkaka?”
Before anniversaries, the large radio play edition is not far off at DAV. This is also the case with Dostoevsky, whose 200th birthday is coming up in the fall. The box contains nine radio plays (10 CDs, 8 hours, 50 minutes)which were created from 1957 to 2004. It is not so much the adaptations of the weighty works that attract attention here, but rather the chamber play-like productions for two or three actors. So not the radio play “Raskolnikow” based on “Schuld und Sühne” from the 1950s, but the SWF implementation (today SWR) of “Die Sanfte” from 1994. Dostoyevsky’s “fantastic story” is originally the monologue of a misogynous pawnbroker with the aim of to get to the bottom of the truth about his young wife’s suicide. The highlight of the adaptation by Sabine Peters, vividly implemented by director Corinne Frottier: Actress Ulrike Grote gives the “gentle” voice its own against the tyrant spoken by Klaus Barner.
Hermynia Zur Mühlen’s novel “Our Daughters, the Nazines”, published in 1935, is currently only available as part of the edition by the Viennese woman, also known as the “Red Countess”. On the other hand, you can now listen to it thanks to the small publishing house, run by Christine Lemke, Reads non-fiction and specialist book, Gesafa for short (1 mp3 CD, 6 hours, 2 minutes). In it, three mothers from a small town on Lake Constance – the worker Kati Gruber, the aristocrat Countess Saldern and the doctor’s wife Martha Feldhüter – tell how their daughters became staunch supporters of the Nazis. Julia Cortis, well-known BR radio voice, reads the sociologically and psychologically clairvoyant case study, depending on the narrator, naively-incredulous, accusingly-self-critical or hateful with envy. The latter applies to Martha Feldhüter, who, unlike the other two, finally sees her own social advancement and that of the family come after the Nazis came to power. The resolute opponent of the regime, Zur Mühlen, lays all her contempt in the portrayal of the opportunist and anti-Semite.