Wenn das Leben aus den Fugen gerät: Drei Romane voller Tiefe und Witz
What happens when life suddenly turns out not to be what it seemed? In “German Glück,” Simon Urban exposes the crumbling dream of prosperity at a German luxury resort. In “Free Solo,” Rainer Imm tells of the high price of social mobility. And in “Tango in Istanbul,” Lea Martin asks why we cling to what unsettles us. An evening that gets under your skin.
Simon Urban: “German Glück”
“German Glück” is a razor-sharp, highly topical social novel that could be Germany’s “The White Lotus”: seven lives collide at a luxury resort in the German countryside. A burning Tesla in the Mecklenburg countryside marks ground zero: freshly fired and without his luggage, Roger Ross flees to the luxury resort “Eden” and radically reinvents himself. But the hotel is no refuge; it is a glittering final stop for the illusions of our time. For at “Eden,” this crumbling fortress of West German prosperity, all the guests apparently cling to a life that has long since become history: a TV comedian scorched by a social-media storm, a tobacco executive who has lost his wife to climate activism, a pair of twins living on their mother’s pension, and an executive assistant who wants to save the resort with her murderous plan. This community of fate dances on the edge of the abyss. Wickedly biting and wildly funny at the same time: a literary reckoning with appearances, in which the German soul books a wellness retreat and gets madness instead.
Simon Urban was born in Hagen in 1975. He studied German language and literature in Münster and at the German Literary Institute in Leipzig. His novel “Plan D” (2011) has been translated into eleven languages, and his advertising film #heimkommen, with 70 million views, is one of the most successful German viral videos ever. He wrote the story on which the feature film “Exit” (2020) was based for ARD. His novel “Wie alles begann und wer dabei umkam” received the Hamburg Literature Prize. He lives in Techau (Ostholstein).
Rainer Imm: “Free Solo”
With “Free Solo,” Tübingen-based author and journalist Rainer Imm presents his sixth book—a powerful novel about social mobility from the confines of a social housing estate into the world of academics, about self-assertion, loss, and the feeling of being caught between worlds. In vivid prose, Imm tells the story of a boy from a community shaped by toughness, loyalty, and an uncompromising sense of justice—and who decides to escape that environment. But the price is high: with upward mobility come alienation, a loss of identity, and the painful awareness of not quite belonging anywhere. “Free Solo” is an existential balancing act: raw, intense, and deeply moving. The novel offers no easy answers—and that is precisely why it rings so true for the many people searching for a way forward between their roots and their future.
Rainer Imm lives and works in Tübingen. As a freelance author and journalist, he writes about social issues and personal journeys through life. His novels “Niemandssohn” and “Stahlberg & Co.”, as well as the football anthology “Bolzplatz – Das Buch,” have already been published by Omnino Verlag; two crime novels have appeared with Silberburg-Verlag. With “Free Solo,” he presents his most personal novel to date.
Lea Martin: “Tango in Istanbul”
Istanbul is Karen’s great dream. For years, she works toward this destination, hoping to find there a defiant, rebellious tango. Shortly before departure, she gets in touch with Mustafa, a man who is part of her inner landscape. An on-again, off-again relationship sustained by closeness and withdrawal, longing and uncertainty. Against all reason, they make the trip together. As soon as they arrive in Istanbul, the promise becomes a trial. The city is loud, glaring, coded as masculine—and there is no sign of tango. What follows is less a love story than a precise exploration of emotional dynamics: How does attachment form? When does closeness tip into a loss of self? And why do we cling to what unsettles us? As Karen moves through Istanbul—dancing tango, talking, keeping silent—she uncovers layer after layer of her own patterns.
Lea Joan Martin began her career in poetry and journalism. Her love of reality and the freedom of the individual word also shape her stories and novels: “I write about situations in which people are destabilized by an encounter or relationship and forced to reorganize themselves. It can take on a more comic quality, or be existential, hurtful, and irreversible.”
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
The event is sold out.
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
