Luft zum Leben

Reading and discussion with Helga Schubert
Moderator: Beate Tröger
In the early 1980s, a woman strolls through East Berlin after work because she doesn't want to be the first one home. In Moscow, a writer is supposed to portray the prima ballerina
Ulanova, waits days for a meeting and then experiences something unexpected.
A child breathes in for the first time, a grandmother breathes out for the last time. And a woman in her middle years tries to come to terms with a cancer diagnosis. These stories tell of longing and wanderlust, of dictatorship and inner freedom, of being human and remaining human. Laconically, truthfully and precisely, Helga Schubert tells of existential questions that underpin the everyday lives of the characters and sometimes set the course of life anew. Helga Schubert, born in Berlin in 1940, was a psychotherapist and writer in the GDR. She withdrew from the literary public eye until she won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2020 with the story "Vom Aufstehen"
won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. 2023 saw the publication of "Der heutige Tag. "A Book of Hours of Love" about caring for a seriously ill person - and about love, which also includes compassion.