Some enjoy telling their stories, others prefer to listen. So can people, including writers, be divided into two distinct groups? Antje Rávik Strubel had long assumed she belonged to one group rather than the other - until she was told a story that seriously challenged her (self-)perception.
Saša Stanišić, Reykjavík How does the Arctic fox change its coat?
Over the last few years Saša Stanišić has played a story-telling game with his young son: the boy gives him three words, and he then makes a story out of them. All of the stories begin with him driving away in a taxi - and end with him happily coming back home again. While at the Literature Festival in Reykjavík he invented a story specially for us - using the words ‘fox’, ‘volcano’ and ‘T-shirt’.
Colm Tóibín wrote his most recent novel, The Magician, in Los Angeles. The book concerns Thomas Mann, who in the 1940s also lived in LA - in a house that was built to his own specification, and in which he wrote his novel Dr Faustus. Although the house was close by, Tóibín couldn’t visit it because of the pandemic, with the result that it remained a house of dreams full of inspiring treasures - though it did ultimately open its doors once again.
Los Angeles ist zu einem Teil der Erzählerin geworden. In vielen geradezu magischen Erinnerungen ist die Stadt in ihr präsent: Fahrten durch verlassene Straßen, Zitronenblüten, der Glanz der Palmen vor dem Nachthimmel, Jahreszeiten, die so subtil sind, dass sie von Menschen, die an Orten mit „echten“ Jahreszeiten leben, nicht wahrgenommen werden. Sie trägt L.A. in sich, bis sie endlich dorthin zurückkehrt.
Realization: Thomas Böhm (texts, editing and design), Dr. Anne-Bitt Gerecke, Martin Bach, Marie Kiewe, Miriam Spinrath (editing and design), Marcus Sporkmann (video editing) and Eliphas Nyamogo (editing)
