Lecture and discussion with Robert Menasse

The great European novel -  of adventures in the Rough Land of the Skipetars and accidents on the slippery parquet of Brussels 

"With his new novel, which deals with the enlargement policy of the European Union, Robert Menasse has created a brilliant kaleidoscope that links world events and individual fates in a multi-faceted way: clever, witty, with the necessary foresight and a healthy dose of madness." (Suhrkamp Verlag)  
Two brothers, not physical brothers but "blood brothers", connected by an oath they took in the Polish underground struggle against the communist regime, go their separate ways after its collapse. 
One, Mateusz, rises to the highest offices and eventually becomes Polish prime minister. The other, Adam, made a career for himself in the European Commission after Poland's accession to the EU; in Brussels he was responsible for enlargement policy. What was once a deep bond turns into an irreconcilable enmity of European dimensions. The two meet again on a cruise organised by the Albanian prime minister, to which he has invited all the heads of government of the Balkan states, the EU foreign ministers and all the representatives of the European Union. 

  Following the invitation from Europanetzwerk Deutsch, the Representation of the State of Hesse to the EU, and the Austrian Cultural Forum in Brussels, Robert Menasse read several passages from his EU novel Die Erweiterung (The Enlargement), published in 2022. This is a continuation of his work Die Hauptstadt (The Capital), which was awarded the German Book Prize in 2017. The new novel deals with the European Union's enlargement policy and spans a whole panoply of human destinies, peppered with historical anecdotes, geographical details and political digressions.

In conversation with EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, Menasse spoke out in favour of a common European narrative as the basis for a post-national political order. After a closing speech by Dr Elke Kaschl Mohni, Director of the Goethe-Institut Brussels, Robert Menasse was available for book signings and personal conversations. With around 600 guests, the event was very well attended and continued the following day in Luxembourg at the Institut Pierre Werner.

Robert Menasse was born in Vienna in 1954 and also grew up there. He studied German, philosophy and political science in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina and received his doctorate in 1980 with a thesis on the type of outsider in the literary world. Menasse then taught at the University of São Paulo for six years - first as a lecturer for Austrian literature, then as a guest lecturer at the Institute for Literary Theory. There he mainly taught courses on philosophical and aesthetic theories, including Hegel, Lukács, Benjamin and Adorno. Since his return from Brazil in 1988, Robert Menasse has lived mainly in Vienna as a writer and cultural-critical essayist. The multi-award-winning writer gave the keynote speech at the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome in the European Parliament on 21 March 2017. Last year he received the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book 2022. His novel "Die Hauptstadt" was awarded the German Book Prize of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels in 2017.

Participation for EU officials from Brussels and Luxembourg, ministerial officials from the Permanent Representations of EU Member States and interested parties.