As a six-year-old, the author moved from Poland to the West German province. With his parents he left the workers’ settlement of a Polish chemical factory, arrived in a foreign dreamland full of marvels like the Ford Capri, the big drum of Chio chips and freedom. Years later, he only realizes that he has fully arrived in his new homeland when he finds Germany just as vermieve and unbearable as the real Germans. Again and again he looks back to the East of Europe, which blossomed after the fall of the so-called Iron Curtain. It flourished after the fall of the Iron Curtain, but was soon threatened anew: By nationalism and lack of freedom. That the West is also in danger, nobody/no one would have thought that a Trump and the AFD would achieve great success. Nevertheless, Soboczynski has written a cheerful, a melancholy, a wise and a present book.

Adam Soboczynski, b. 1975 in Toruń, Poland, lives in Berlin and Hamburg and heads the literature department in the feature section of DIE ZEIT. He wrote several narrative nonfiction books, including The Gentle Defense of Women in Love. In 2015, his novel Fabelhafte Eigenschaften was published by Klett-Cotta.

Moderation: Dr. Viola Krizak

Cooperation with the German-Polish Society Hamburg