The photos by Maya Mercer are blood-red, as are the poems by Albert Ostermaier: the joint volume “Yuba” (Steidl) exudes drama and danger at the same time. The title refers to the American photographer’s series The Parochial Segments, for which she worked in Yuba, Northern California.
You don’t have to know that this area is characterized by a violent, racist history when you open the volume: Not only in the pictures, but also in the poems of the Munich writer, this is vibrantly present. “Are you asleep or is / the ball your sleep” begins a poem with the deceptive title “Peacemaker”. And yet, despite all the brutality, there is also this: beauty.
Albert Ostermaier: Yuba, book premiere, Thursday, July 20, 7 p.m., Literaturhaus, Salvatorplatz, literaturhaus-muenchen.de