Literaturhaus Munich: Doris Dörries presents her new novel "The Heroine Travels" live!

Created: 03/25/2022, 09:08

By: Katja Kraft

The Munich filmmaker and writer Doris Dörrie © Ursula Düren

Doris Dörrie misses traveling.

In her new book "The heroine travels", the filmmaker ("Cherry Blossoms - Hanami") and author remembers her travels before the corona pandemic.

On March 25, 2022, the author will present her new work live (also via stream) at 8 p.m. in the Literaturhaus Munich.

Inspiring!

A woman in a foreign country.

Alone.

Nobody knows her.

She strides through the revolving door of the hotel into the unfamiliar city.

Set the stage for another version of herself. We can be who we want to be at home when we are far away.

The brave can be fearful, the fearful can be bold, the shy can be rebellious, the funny can be serious.

Because no one here has given you a role yet.

Perhaps that is the reason why Doris Dörrie leaves her adopted home of Munich so often to discover other worlds.

And maybe she only really realized that when traveling was suddenly no longer possible due to the corona pandemic.

With her new book "The heroine travels", the writer and filmmaker reminds herself and us of how valuable it is to immerse oneself in other cultures.

And what is lost

when travel is only virtual.

On March 25, 2022, she will present it at 8 p.m. in the Literaturhaus Munich.

Tickets - also for the live stream - are available here.

In the corona lockdown, the narrator Doris Dörrie had nothing more to tell

“I only look, listen, smell, touch, marvel.

Traveling catapults me into the pure present.” But then: the lockdown.

Curled and down, there is not much left to marvel at.

Touch prohibited.

What does a narrative observer like her do in such moments?

Dörrie connoisseurs know: the 66-year-old writes in her notebook every day.

Exactly as she described it in her bestseller “Read, Write, Breathe”.

Sketching her surroundings for at least ten minutes is her daily mindfulness training session.

Like a squirrel collecting impressions.

During the bitterly cold, enforced standstill, the industrious writer draws on her supplies.

And, what luck, now shares nut by nut with us readers in "The Heroine Travels".

Japan, a place of longing: Before the corona pandemic, Doris Dörrie traveled to the Asian country almost every year.

Her acclaimed film "Cherry Blossoms - Hanami" (2008) was also made here.

Our photo shows a scene with Elmar Wepper and Aya Irizuki.

© Majestic Film Distribution

It's an autofiction book.

You never know what the author actually experienced and what she dreamed up.

But does that matter?

“What I tell you becomes a different story in your head anyway.

And when you tell it, it changes again.

And if someone hears and reads them, again.

The truth about me disappears like a drop of ink in a glass of water,” Dörrie lets her (real?) friend Tatsu say at one point.

The Japanese woman is the same age as the writer and used to live in Hanover.

Tatsu's life: a drama in several sad acts.

But when Dörrie tells it, the small, fat woman also becomes a heroine.

When we travel, we always take our culturally influenced self with us

The other heroine of the story is the author herself. When she cites the anecdotal memories from old letters and diaries that recall Doris, who went to America as a young woman, she provokes the question of how far we can rewrite our own history .

Can you reinvent yourself in the old environment?

And don't you always take your own stuck, culturally influenced self with you when you travel?

In addition, an extremely meaningful (and extremely funny) quote from the writing Japan lover, which sums up the answer: "I've learned to say in Japanese: I don't need a plastic bag, thanks."

Maybe it's not about change at all.

Maybe it's about pausing.

Traveling is like diving.

"I don't speak the language underwater, I don't understand anything and I'm not understood, and that's what I find wonderful." A state of limbo like in foreign countries.

break from everything.

Breathe in.

Exhale.

"We could be someone else"

We cannot get out of our own film alive.

But we can try other roles.

For Dörrie and her friend Eva, the favorite thing to do far away is to roam exotic shops and department stores.

Then they try on different clothes every minute until they get sore muscles in their arms.

Heavy limbs, hearts leaping with happiness.

"We use the shops as a stage for the same play over and over again: We could also be someone else entirely."

Doris Dörrie: "The Heroine Travels".

Diogenes Verlag, Zurich, 240 pages;

22 euros.

Reading: Doris Dörrie will present her book on March 25, 8 p.m. in the Munich Literaturhaus, Salvatorplatz 1;

Tickets - also for the live stream - on 01806/70 07 33 or here