Gunnar Decker reads in honor of the 150th anniversary of the birth (2025) and the 100th anniversary of the death (2026) of the greatest poet of early modernism. Even after more than a hundred years, Rainer Maria Rilke continues to open up new worlds. He entices his readers to engage in existential self-reflection and calls for decisive action: “You must change your life.”
Even after more than a hundred years, Rainer Maria Rilke continues to open up new worlds. He entices his readers to engage in existential self-reflection and calls for decisive action: “You must change your life.” As Gunnar Decker points out, his poetry was always also a reaction to the crises of his time—an attempt to write his way into an alternative world that, for him, was more worth living in than the one he found.
In his biography, Decker also delves deeply into Rilke’s difficult relationship with his mother, Phia, his non-relationship with his lifelong wife, Clara, and his daughter, Ruth. He describes Rilke’s struggle with physical decline—which offers a key to understanding his work—and interprets his decision after World War I to no longer identify as a German poet. A fresh, surprising perspective on one of the most enigmatic figures in poetry.
Gunnar Decker was born in Kühlungsborn in 1965 and grew up in Bad Doberan. He studied philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin. He lives in Berlin as an author and journalist. Gunnar Decker has published widely acclaimed biographies of figures such as Franz Fühmann, Hermann Hesse, Francis of Assisi, and Ernst Barlach. In 2016, he was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize by the Berlin Academy of Arts.
The Literary Society cordially invites you to a reading with author Gunnar Decker at the Ehm Welk House.
