“If only I knew what was worth telling about the porous heap of my past,” writes the narrator in Jan Factor’s autobiography “Trottel”, which was awarded the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize in 2022 and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize . Factor does not flirt, it took the Prague native, born in 1951, several attempts to write this special picaresque novel. It leads from Prague to East Berlin in the 1970s and 1980s, to the “old sleepy GDR” according to the factor, through which he stumbles with humor and full of disgust. This book (Kiepenheuer & Witsch) is overflowing, super funny, grotesque and terribly sad, because underneath it all lies Factor’s pain over the loss of his son, who took his own life in 2012. In the Seidlvilla you can meet Jan Factor and his book on February 7th.
“Trollel”, reading and discussion with Jan Factor, Tuesday, February 7th, 7.30 p.m., Seidlvilla, Nikolaiplatz 1b, registration at [email protected], seidlvilla.de