What does it mean to be modern today?
Kleist’s The Earthquake in Chile, Raabe’s At the Sign of the Wild Man, Benn’s Brains – nothing has ever been written in a more modern style; all three texts were considered avant-garde in their day and they all negotiated what realistic storytelling meant in their time. In this volume, they meet the present.
Thomas Hettche has invited twelve authors to discuss their own writing, based on these texts that broke with all conventions in its time. The goal: a critical re-reading of the canonical texts – and an inventory of what it means to be modern today. The result: 12 brilliant essays that give us the opportunity to watch contemporary German authors become more aware of their own writing as they grapple with their role models. The volume also offers the complete original texts by Kleist, Raabe, and Benn, allowing readers to refer back to them.
The twelve authors included are: Lucas Baerfuss, Aris Fioretus, Durs Grünbein, Felicitas Hoppe, Daniel Kehlmann, Sibylle Lewitscharoff, Olga Martynova, Ulrich Peltzer, Monika Rinck, Sabine Scholl, Katharina Schultens and Ingo Schulze.
