Event as part of the 30th Schwerin Literature Days
DAS NARRENSCHIFF - Reading with Christoph Hein
A state - like all states - is founded for all eternity and disappears almost without a trace after forty years. Have the people who once lived there fallen into oblivion and are their dreams just a fleeting breeze in the epochal winds of time?
Christoph Hein unfolds an impressive panorama of the GDR, from its founding to the dramatic turning points of the young state. He brings together the men and women who played the most diverse roles in the founding of the GDR and accompanies them through the dramatic developments of a society in the making and in failure. Convinced communists, formerly enthusiastic Nazis, functionaries entangled in intrigue, intellectuals who have managed to salvage their bourgeoisie under real socialism, shoe salesmen, waiters, factory workers, janitors and even a high-ranking Stasi man all recognize in one way or another that they belong to an involuntary crew on board a community that they increasingly perceive as a ship of fools and whose course is heading towards ever more threatening cliffs.
Christoph Hein was born on April 8, 1944 in Heinzendorf, Silesia. After the end of the war, the family moved to Bad Düben near Leipzig, where Hein grew up. He studied philosophy and logic and worked as an in-house playwright at the Volksbühne Berlin from 1974 to 1979. His breakthrough came in 1982/83 with his novella "Der fremde Freund / Drachenblut".
Moderator: Anke Jahns, NDR MV
Friday
10. October 2025
7:30 pm
Wichernsaal, Apothekerstraße 48 / Körnerstraße 7 (entrance via the courtyard)
Admission
Advance booking and box office: €16.00* (plus ticket fee if applicable)
Organizer
Kulturbüro der State capital Schwerin in cooperation with NDR
