Event series
Meet the Author with Jakob Hein
Online book presentation and discussion
In Jakob Hein's satirical novel Wie Grischa mit einer verwegenen Idee beinahe den Weltfrieden auslöste (How Grischa almost brought about world peace with a daring idea), the young GDR civil servant Grischa Tannberg embarks on a political and economic adventure in the early 1980s. As a shy assistant at the State Planning Commission, he surprisingly develops an ingenious – and completely unorthodox – plan to save the ailing GDR economy. The starting point is a state-controlled cannabis experiment that Grischa initiates as part of trade relations with the ‘brother country’ Afghanistan.
The story links this absurd idea to a real historical event: the billion-dollar loan that Franz Josef Strauß negotiated for the GDR in 1983. Hein uses this to tell a humorous, pointed and deliberately exaggerated explanation of how this political coup came about – including a ‘miracle of Bavaria’ that steers the plot in increasingly bizarre directions.
Author Jakob Hein will be a guest at Meet the Author in March 2026 to present his novel in conversation with Dorine Schellens, assistant professor at Leiden University. The event will take place online and in German.
The story links this absurd idea to a real historical event: the billion-dollar loan that Franz Josef Strauß negotiated for the GDR in 1983. Hein uses this to tell a humorous, pointed and deliberately exaggerated explanation of how this political coup came about – including a ‘miracle of Bavaria’ that steers the plot in increasingly bizarre directions.
Author Jakob Hein will be a guest at Meet the Author in March 2026 to present his novel in conversation with Dorine Schellens, assistant professor at Leiden University. The event will take place online and in German.
