Kim de l'Horizon, winner of the German Book Prize, was a guest at the Munich Literature House.
Review of a special reading: entertaining, funny, clever and creative.
When the Literaturhaus Munich is almost over on Monday, moderator Miriam Zeh from Deutschlandfunk says to Kim de l'Horizon: "We didn't completely insult the audience." No, of course not.
Rather, there is a good deal of coquetry in this sentence, and Zeh knows that. Because these 90 minutes were entertaining, funny, clever, creative - and after all, that's quite a lot for a reading.
The focus of the evening on Salvatorplatz is the novel "Blutbuch" (published by DuMont Verlag).
For the work, de l'Horizon received the German Book Prize, becoming the first non-binary person in the history of this important literary award.
Kim de l'Horizon's "Blood Book" is a dazzling life story
This was followed by the Swiss Book Prize and a few more - "Blutbuch", an intensive, language-loving and autobiographically dazzling life story, is therefore one of the most discussed books of the season.
The interest in this event, which the Munich Literature House organized together with the NS Documentation Center, is correspondingly high: the large hall has been sold out for weeks;
More people have booked the live stream than ever before, says Tanja Graf, director of the Literaturhaus.
Kim de l'Horizon is also happy about the enormous interest - but there is also a sense of exhaustion: Traveling is exhausting.
Nevertheless (or precisely because of this?) de l'Horizon initiated a remarkable ritual: "Wherever I travel, I deal with the persecution of witches and dedicate a poem to the victims." In Munich, these are Anna and Brigitta Anbacher , 1590 burned at the Hackerbrücke, where the ZOB is today.
"Thank you for your thunderstorm" ends the verses that de l'Horizon recites after a bundle of smoldering herbs has been passed around in the audience.
Kim de l'Horizon worked on Blood Book for ten years
After this touching beginning, the duo on stage very empathetically, entertainingly and informatively draws a line to questions of literature, life, writing, togetherness and dialect - topics that are also dealt with in the "Blood Book".
Kim de l'Horizon worked on it for ten years.
“The novel has stayed with me for a long time.
And so I'm happy when there's time for something new.
But I don't know when that will be." Soon, hopefully.