With his new book, Klaus Modick grants his readers a look at his desk, explains the context of the origin of his most successful work and allows us to share in the inspiration that triggers and advances the writing process.
Almost 30 years lie between the writing journal he kept for the novel Das Grau der Karolinen (The Gray of the Caroline Islands, 1986) and the initial idea for Konzert ohne Dichter (Concert Without a Poet, 2015), which came to the author while he was completing his tax forms. 30 years during which Klaus Modick constantly thinks about his own writing. He remembers the magic of reading Karl May for the first time as a child, his own beginnings as a writer, defines his position as a postmodern author and describes the relationship between experience and literature. In the process, he reveals himself to be a knowledgeable reader of Anglo-American classics, a smart commentator on recent German literary history and an accomplished translator – and also always a fine observer of himself. The observations he presents here offer exciting and illuminating insights into working on and with literature. And whet one’s appetite for reading and rereading.
