Perceiving the World – A Conversation with Thomas Melle

“When you’re bipolar, your life no longer has continuity. The illness has closed off your past and threatens to do the same to your future to an even greater extent. With every manic episode, your life as you knew it becomes all the more impossible. The person who you believed you were and knew has no solid foundation anymore. You can no longer be sure of yourself. And you no longer know who you were. What otherwise might quickly come and go as an idea is put into action in a manic short circuit. Every person has an abyss inside of them which they occasionally get a glimpse of; yet mania is an entire tour of this abyss...” – excerpt from “The World at Your Back”

Generally regarded as the most talked-about book in the fall of 2016, “The World at Your Back” is an autobiographical work by the multi-award winning German author Thomas Melle. After much waiting, the Chinese translated version was finally published last year. In this autobiographical work, Thomas Melle tells in a blunt, brilliant and sometimes radical language about his journey dealing with a disease named bipolar disorder. In an online live conversation with Thomas Melle, moderator Dr. Birgit Bunzel Linder will explore the writer’s perception of the world as expressed in his literary work. How his perception changes through this somewhat turbulent journey, and how the art of writing becomes a tool of expression. Chinese translated excerpts from the books will be read by theater actor Mr Sung Boon-Ho during the event.

Thomas Melle:
Thomas Melle was born in 1975 and studied applied literary studies and philosophy in Tübingen, Austin, Texas and Berlin. His 2012 debut novel, Sickster, was nominated for the German Book Prize. 2014 saw the publication of 3,000 Euros, which was shortlisted for the German Book Prize. In 2015, Thomas Melle received the Berlin Arts Prize, awarded by the city in which he lives.

The Moderator:
Dr. Birgit Bunzel Linder studied and taught in Germany, the United States, and China. In addition to teaching and researching in the fields of pre-modern and modern literature, comparative literature, Chinese and Asian film, Chinese cultural studies, and German, she has also worked in other areas of higher education, such as establishment of study abroad programs, curriculum development in Chinese and Asian liberal arts education. Her current research interests focus mainly on concepts of madness and mental illness in Chinese and Asian cultures and literatures, cross-cultural psychologies, comparative literature (Asia, Europe), marginal writers, comparative post-totalitarianism in literature, and issues of national literatures.

Sung Boon-Ho:
Boon Ho Sung trained at HKAPA and University of Wisconsin-Madison. His theatre credits include: Stragglers (Hong Kong Dramatists), A Fork in the Road, Tête-bêche, Dandelion Addicted to Heroin (reading), Stone, Broken Branch, and Black Dog (reading) (On&on Theatre Workshop), The Great Pretender (preview) (West Kowloon Cultural District and Hong Kong Repertory Theatre), Company, I, Ching (Theatre Space), To Mourn at a Bar (reading) (Fiesta Space), Where is Our Sea?, Kassandra or the World as the End of Representation (Littlebreath Creative Workshop), Passive Voice (reading), An Unjust Good Fellow, Monsun (reading), Health, Not? (reading), Farewell the Good Old Days, Farewell the Good Old Days (reading) (Hong Kong Repertory Theatre), Three of Us, Phaedra’s Smile (Heteroglossia), Electric Girl (Re-run) (Hong Kong Dance Company and The Autistic Genius), A Midsummer Night’s Dream-The Musical 2.0, and many more.