Vom Fällen eines Stammbaums

Literature and Its Intermediaries
Reading and Discussion
Friday, December 4, 7:30 p.m.
On the Felling of a Family Tree
Martin Piekar
Moderator: Ulrike Wörner
Stirring. If one had to choose just a single word to sum up the work of Martin Piekar—the multi-award-winning German-Polish author born in Bad Soden in 1990—that word would be “stirring.” He is visiting Stuttgart to present his debut novel, “On Cutting Down a Family Tree.” It is the story of Marcin and his ailing mother, who talks to the walls. For Piekar, cutting down a family tree does not mean eradication, but rather revealing the true nature of a person. His autofictional novel explores different forms of escape, illness, alcohol, and uprooting. It is a story of love and anger—and certainly one that avoids simplistic finger-pointing. In Piekar’s poetry, too, life is a damaged one—entirely in the spirit of Adorno: a life that has been scarred not only by individual traumas but also by social injustices, and yet insists with force on being there: “I sing for those who, pale as mirrors, practice the grin of failure,” writes Piekar in his latest poetry collection *livestream & leichen*; “I sing to prove to all of us that we are alive.”

Supported by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sports
Admission: 14, 12, 7 €