Readings and discussion with Thomas Brussig, Christoph Hein and Juli Zeh. Chaired by Hugo Hamilton
Presented in association with the Goethe Institut, Dublin.
THOMAS BRUSSIG was born in 1965 and grew up
in East Berlin. He has worked as a removal man, museum guard and hotel porter and studied sociology and dramaturgy. His bestselling book Helden wie wir / Heroes Like Us remains one of the most popular fictions dealing with the collapse of communism in East Germany. Described as "a mixture of Woody Allen's self-analytical anxiety and Henry Miller's sexual frankness," the result is "an over-the-wall comedy about a perversion-obsessed but otherwise clueless secret police trainer. Nothing, from Olympic skating coaches to the concept of motherhood, is spared the jabs of Thomas Brussig's satire."
Thomas Brussig is also co-author of the screenplay of Heimat 3 which shows at the Irish Film Institute, June 17-23. Details of screenings from the IFI, 01 6794744, or www.irishfilm.ie.
CHRISTOPH HEIN was born in 1944 in Silesia. The family eventually settled near Leipzig. As the son of a pastor, Hein was denied higher education in the GDR. In 1958 he attended school in West Berlin, returning to the East when the Berlin Wall was built. He was not allowed to study until 1967. While working at the Volksbühne in Berlin he began writing plays, many of which he was prevented from staging in the East. One of Germany's most eminent writers, he has been awarded many prestigious prizes for his work and his plays are now staged throughout Germany. Among his novels are Der fremde Freund / The Distant Lover (1982/1985), Horns Ende (1985), Der Tango-Spieler / The Tango Player (1989 / 1993), Der Napoleon-Spiel (1993), the collection of stories Exekution eines Kalbes (1994) and Von allem Anfang An (1997).
JULI ZEH was born in Bonn in 1974. She has worked for the UN in New York, Krakow, and Zagreb, and now lives in Leipzig. Her first novel, Adler und Engel (2002), was awarded the Deutschen Bücherpreis for best first novel, the Bremer Literaturpreis, and the Rauriser Literaturpreis for the best novel by a German-speaking author, and was published in English as Eagles and Angels (2003).
www.juli-zeh.de.
HUGO HAMILTON was born in Dublin of Irish-German parentage and his memoir of that Dublin upbringing, The Speckled People, was both a bestseller and one of the most praised Irish books of recent years. His novels include Surrogate City (1990), The Last Shot (1991), The Love Test (1995), Headbanger (1996) and Sad Bastard (1998), while Dublin Where the Palm Trees Grow (1996) is a collection of stories. Hugo Hamilton lives in Dublin.