An intellectual autobiography in ten encounters
This book is an invitation: Thomas Hettche guides the reader to the themes of his life by presenting people who mean something to him. Ten encounters that reveal as much about the author as about our times.
Thomas Hettche made a name for himself as a skillful narrator and astute essayist. Now, in Totenberg (literally “death mountain”) – the actual name of the landmark hill near his native town – he reveals himself as a wanderer between worlds, weaving radically honest autobiographical sketches together with theoretical discourses. Totenberg incorporates many different tones of voice and includes accurate descriptions of German landscapes, lively portraits and insightful debates about situations that matter to the author. Hettche talks about the connection between art and landscape with Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, about the responsibility of intellectuals with Christa Bürger, about the forgotten free dancer Valeska Gert with Henriette Fischer, about the possibility of religious art with Anita Albus, and about Ernst Jünger’s position and the role of the military in today’s world with Michael Klett. The leitmotiv is Hettche’s feeling of homelessness, embodied by his Sudeten German mother’s empty suitcase in the attic of his parents’ house – a feeling of homelessness for which Hettche only found relief through literature, which didn’t exist in his childhood home.
