Eva Sichelschmidt and Durs Grünbein: Passages from the work of Marie Luise Kaschnitz on the occasion of her 125th birthday

 

 

The stones of Rome speak, blooming in the neon light. Marie Luise Kaschnitz

Renowned German authors Eva Sichelschmidt and Durs Grünbein take the 125th birthday of Marie Luise Kaschnitz as an opportunity to share their fascination for the writer and poet with the audience, from the perspective of two literary figures – a prose author and a poet. For Eva Sichelschmidt, Kaschnitz is a progressive representative of applied feminism, which has its origins in a thirst for knowledge and a joy in education and insight, and a brilliant stylist, especially in her short prose with autofictional references. Durs Grünbein admires her concise descriptive artistry, her gift for portraying characteristics with just a few strokes, the depth of historical references in her poetry and her keen powers of observation. But above all, Marie Luise Kaschnitz and Durs Grünbein have one thing in common: their love of Italy, especially Rome. Seeing Rome through her eyes still opens up new perspectives on the near and distant past. Eva Sichelschmidt and Durs Grünbein will demonstrate these aspects by reading selected passages from Kaschnitz’s works and in conversation.

Eva Sichelschmidt was born on 25 July 1970 in Wuppertal and initially lived in the Ruhr area. In 1989, she moved to Berlin, where she opened a tailor’s workshop for bridal and evening wear and worked as a costume designer for film and opera. In 1997, she founded the shop ‘Whisky & Cigars’ in Berlin Mitte, which still exists today. Since 2010, she has been working as an author and commutes between Rome and Berlin. She is married and has three daughters.

In 2022, she took part in the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition in Klagenfurt. She is the author of several novels, including Bis wieder einer weint, which was longlisted for the German Book Prize and shortlisted for the Ruhr Literature Prize in 2020.

Durs Grünbein, born in Dresden in 1962, is one of the best-known and most highly regarded poets and intellectuals in the current panorama of European literature. He made his debut with the poetry collection Grauzone morgens (1988), which soon won him the prestigious Büchner Prize (1995). Grünbein is also the author of essays and narrative prose. Grünbein lives in Berlin and, by choice, in Rome, where he was, among other things, a fellow of the German Academy of the Villa Massimo (2009).

He has received numerous awards for his work to date, including the Nietzsche Prize (2004), the Pasolini Prize (2006), the Transströmer Prize (2012), the Herbert Zbigniew Prize (2020) and most recently an honorary doctorate of philosophical sciences (University of Milan, 2022) and the CetonaVerde Poetry Prize (2023).

The event will take place in German language.

With the kind support of the Society for the German Language (Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache e. V.).