Dachau reads in 2021: All authors, all topics – Dachau

Steffen Mollnow did not see the “Dachau reads” literature festival in autumn 2021. The head of the Dachau city library died in August last year at the age of only 43 years. “Dachau reads” was “his baby”. As it now turns out, it is in the best hands with his successor, Slávka Rude-Porubská, she maintains the successful little reading festival in the spirit of Mollnow with an illustrious selection of authors, with socially relevant topics and, yes, a bit of glamor . Steffen Kopetzky, Eva Gruberová and Helmut Zeller, Judith Hermann and Helga Schubert and Doris Dörrie come to the eighth edition of “Dachau Reads”. A free reading for children and young people by Alice Pantermüller rounds off the program. The city library is organizing “Dachau reads” this year from October 4th to 9th.

Autobiographical writing

In more than 50 short chapters, the film director and author Doris Dörrie tells of her life, of childhood memories and carefree moments of happiness, but also of personal strokes of fate and catastrophes. Your book “Live, write, breathe” is also an invitation to everyone to discover the power of autobiographical writing. With creative tips and instructions, Doris Dörrie encourages her readers to put aside the need for self-control and optimization and start writing about their own life – without fear, shame or doubt. Writing to approach people, objects, wild thoughts, strange and familiar places or moments you have experienced yourself with a special atmosphere and strong emotions and thus to put the world into words. These can also be the little things in life: the taste of lemons; what it’s like to dance or about a piece of clothing. The interactive reading will take place on Monday, October 4th, at 8 p.m.

Love in times of smallpox

Open detailed view

Aerosols and viruses, isolated hospitals and vaccination campaigns, parties as super-spreader events and deniers of the risk of infection: the scenes from the novel “Monschau” with which Steffen Kopetzky on Tuesday, October 5th, read irritatingly familiar in our Corona present. is a guest at 8 p.m. and tells of the outbreak of a smallpox epidemic in 1962 in the Monschau district in the Eifel. The questions about the official errors in pandemic management and the strong economic interests are also very topical and explosive: The boss of the Monschauer Rither-Werke, who benefited from old ropes from the Nazi era, refuses to shut down the flourishing production of the blast furnaces exported all over the world and to quarantine the infected. Along the story of the fight against the highly contagious epidemic by the well-known dermatologist Günter Stüttgen, which is based on true events, the novel also tells of a love in a state of emergency that blossoms between the Greek medical student Nikolaos Spyridakis and Vera, the wealthy sole heir of the Rither factory.

Middle anti-Semitism

Open detailed view

The official statistics show an increase in anti-Semitic crimes in Germany, the desecration of Jewish monuments, attacks on synagogues and anti-Jewish slogans. And that in the year 2021 of all places, when Jewish life in Germany can look back on 1700 years of history. Many in Germany locate the anti-Semitism, which has been sparked by crises and spread through hateful posts in social media, mainly on the margins of society, among right-wing or left-wing radicals or in Muslim communities. Eva Gruberová and Helmut Zeller, on the other hand, put forward an uncomfortable thesis in their latest book “Diagnosis: Jew hatred. The return of a German disease”: anti-Semitism did not disappear after the Holocaust and 1945.

Open detailed view

It is still there, even more virulent than ever in the young 21st century – and it is deeply rooted in society. Eva Gruberová and Helmut Zeller, who is also responsible for the Dachau SZ writes, traveled between the Baltic Sea, Bavaria and Vienna for two years and listened to interviews with 80 Jews. In this way, they gave a voice to those directly affected in the anti-Semitism debate: their anger and fears, their resistance and their desire for normalcy. They will discuss the book on Wednesday, October 6th, at 8 p.m., with district home nurse Norbert Göttler, who will moderate the event.

Of retreat and departure

Open detailed view

Arriving in life, feeling at home after having let go of a lot and freed yourself from possessions and previous relationships, that is the theme of the novel “At home” by Judith Hermann. In it, the nameless first-person narrator, a young woman, declines the offer to travel to Singapore as the assistant of a magician on a cruise ship. After the daughter, barely of legal age, set off on a trip around the world, she left her husband and moved from the big city to a small village on the Frisian North Sea coast in her late forties – into a house of her own. The novel, nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2021, will be presented by the author in the reading moderated by Günter Keil on Thursday, October 7th, at 8 p.m. Judith Hermann tells of retreating into the country and of self-chosen solitude, in which one can dare to start again – make cautious friendships, have a love affair, develop a connection to the barren landscape. In straightforward, concise language, the text asks how the limbo between memory and longing, between melancholy and resilience, becomes a departure and how our decisions become turning points in life.

A German life of the century

Open detailed view

“I am a war child, a refugee child, a child of the division of Germany.” The girl, marked by war, flight and displacement as well as the emotional coldness of her mother, sets out in search of affection and warmth in life. The young woman studies and begins to write. She rebelled against the GDR’s injustice regime in the walled-in country, which did not allow travel, and was targeted by the Stasi. Helga Schubert’s volume of short stories “Vom Auferstand. A life in stories”, which the author will present at the reading moderated by Beate Tröger on Saturday, October 9th, at 8 pm, is about how to get up and move, how to rebel and offers resistance, as “getting up” becomes an attitude and a life motto. In soft, sometimes ironic tones, the author, who was awarded the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2020, combines her own experiences, memories and thoughts with the broad historical arc of a century of German history. The touching and thought-rich book, which was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2021, is an impressive life story and a portrait of the time at the same time.

Lotta Petermann’s adventure

For the little fans of Lotta Petermann and her best friend Cheyenne, Alice Pantermüller will read the 17th volume from her successful series “Mein Lotta-Leben” on Thursday, October 7th, at 3 pm with the title “Je Otter, the flotter”. Entry to the children’s event is free. For children between the ages of 8 and 14 years.

Tickets at a price of 14 euros (plus advance booking or processing fee) can be purchased online via www.muenchenticket.de and available at the tourist information office in Dachau. All events take place with a reduced number of visitors in the Ludwig-Thoma-Haus.