A collection of Uwe Timm’s most recent essays on the occasion of his 75th birthday. Timm has produced great novels, novellas and stories, as well as classic children’s books and screenplays – and time and again he has produced texts about writing, about writers and their works, about inspiration for writing and his own motivations.
The spectrum of the book is broad, but it always relates back to Timm’s own life and interests. He writes of Montaigne’s office in a tower, which combines open views with a quiet retreat, and of encounters with Wolfgang Koeppen in Munich. He addresses the question of national identity using the example of Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika, explores local dialects in a panegyric on the German language and the relationship between art and craft using Böll as an example. He also engages in a debate about whether writing is a skill that can be learned. In addition, there is a repeated focus on Thomas Mann, specifically a new interpretation of his novel The Magic Mountain. Brilliant texts, very close to their subjects but also very personal.
