Sparschuh writes with light-handed humor, tender poetry, and acumen about artists we all love.
He has a telepathic conversation with Irmtraud Morgner; walks with Uwe Timm around the Wannsee to Icaria; inspects the condition of old editions of Karl Mickel in the virtual catacombs of the Central Directory of Antiquarian Books; explores a desolate landscape alongside Volker Braun; is stranded with Leonhard Cohen on the Greek island of Hydra; examines historical flotsam and jetsam that Reinhard Minkewitz has picked up; takes purposeful detours wandering with Irina Liebmann along Große Hamburger Straße, at the end of which they stand in amazement before a riddle; briefly plays hooky under a deceptively real sky painted above it by Johannes Nawrath; and for a very risky moment even leaves the navigation to the headstrong Vladimir Nabokov, before climbing the magic mountain with Thomas Mann.
The texts collected in this volume beautifully prove that Jens Sparschuh isn’t just a great storyteller and equally clever and shrewd observer of our present, but also a true master of the short form.
On board: Irmtraud Morgner, Karl Mickel, Arno Schmidt, Uwe Timm, Peter Hacks, Manfred Butzmann, Volker Braun, Reinhard Minkewitz, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Leonhard Cohen, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Warlam Shalamov, Lenka Reinerová, Irina Liebmann, Johannes Nawrath, Kay Voigtmann, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, and Heinrich Heine.
