Event as part of the 31st Schwerin Literature Days
MARBLE, MERCURY, FOG. WHAT THE WORLD IS MADE OF – A Reading with Judith Schalansky
It begins with a white block, a colossus of solid marble weighing nearly 27 metric tons. Long after her encounter with it on a ferry off the island of Thassos, the stone continues to haunt Judith Schalansky. It leads her into the marble quarries and sculpture studios, through the dark, often violent history of material extraction and the appropriation of the world. A workshop at the Guadalajara School of Art, in turn, turns into a daring, mercurial performance as an advocate for book culture. And the reconstruction of a past ascent of the often fog-shrouded Brocken crystallizes into an encyclopedia of opacity that seeks enlightenment in the unknown.
As always with Judith Schalansky, her new book is about everything: the nutritional value of marble pigs, the weight of the Earth, the seating chart for Noah’s Ark, the authenticity of Mexican wrestling, or the Brocken spectre—in other words, phenomena in which unruly reality is reflected and multiplied.
Judith Schalansky, born in Greifswald in 1980, studied art history and communication design. Her work, including the bestseller *Atlas of Remote Islands* and *The Giraffe’s Neck*, has been translated into more than 20 languages and has received numerous awards. She is the editor of the “Naturkunden” series and lives in Berlin as a designer and freelance writer.
Moderator: Anke Jahns, NDR MV
Friday, October 9, 2026,
7:00 p.m.
Oudry Hall at the State Museum, Alter Garten 3
Admission
Advancesales and box office: 15.00 € (plus ticket fee)
Click here for TICKETS
Organizer
, Cultural Office of the State capital Schwerin, in cooperation with NDR
