The well-known author, Ute Fritsch, will read from her book: “With Ringelnatz on Hiddensee.” An entertaining, literary, and thoroughly researched journey focusing on Ringelnatz and Asta Nielsen, which transports us back to the late 1920s on the island of Hiddensee. Diverse and captivating.
The well-known Hiddensee author Ute Fritsch has taken an in-depth look at the brilliant poet-sailor Joachim Ringelnatz and the silent film star Asta Nielsen on Hiddensee. The result is an amusing and entertaining read about Hiddensee—a literary stroll that transports readers back to the island in the late 1920s. Thoroughly researched, Ute’s book seamlessly blends history with the present.
In the summer of 1929, Joachim Ringelnatz was invited by his longtime girlfriend, Asta Nielsen—then Germany’s biggest female movie star—to her summer home, “Karusel,” on Hiddensee. (The Asta Nielsen House still stands on Hiddensee today.) Together with his wife “Muschelkalk” and other artist friends, he spent some of his happiest weeks there. The island inspired him to write enchanting poems; he painted, built sculptures, and collected stones on the beach… The presence of his close friend Asta inspired him to write the now-little-known seafaring drama “Die Flasche.” Just five years later, Ringelnatz died in poverty at the age of only 51. Asta Nielsen was so distraught by her friend’s death that she left her beautiful “Karusel” on Hiddensee and Germany forever.
Ute Fritsch has succeeded in writing a touching historical account that also whets the reader’s appetite for the island of Hiddensee. Funny stories and newly uncovered details about Ringelnatz by the sea will enchant the audience. The author will supplement the book reading with stories about Ringelnatz’s close friend on Hiddensee, the painter Helene Herveling-Brockenheuser, and his “favorite house on Hiddensee.”
