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Author Stelling in Berlin's Invalidenpark: "I'll do it again"
Photo:
Hermann Bredehorst / DER SPIEGEL
Anke Stelling's lyrics get straight to the point: that it makes you cry when a woman is like her mother.
That clarity is difficult to achieve.
And that spring with its »light green message of hope« is like an impertinence.
Stelling is the most irreconcilable among German authors.
In her novels and stories, she dismantles the romanticism of self-fulfillment of city dwellers, paying particular attention to the hardships that many women demand.
Stelling cannot be appeased by literary prizes, and no criticism can defuse her prose.
Her theme is the darned gap that keeps opening up - between your own wishes and reality, between what Stelling observes and the pretty facade that others have put up.
"When I talk about what has succeeded, that's nice too," says the author, "but I find what fails, conflicts or contradictions the more interesting material."
Stelling comes by bike to the agreed meeting point on Invalidenstrasse at the corner of Mauerweg.
She is a petite woman, there is nothing noticeable about her appearance, she wears a beige coat and red-brown lace-up shoes.
The ideal elevator for a detective.
We have an appointment for a walk along the canal, on the opposite side of the water, luxury apartment blocks are being completed, houses with floor-to-ceiling windows.
The occasion for the meeting is Stelling's new volume of short stories »Basic Research«.
It contains texts from previous years to which Stelling has added two new stories - more on that later.
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