On the Silesian Magic Mountain

As part of the 43rd Baden-Württemberg Literature Days, we are honored to welcome Polish Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk, and we can look forward to a reading with a discussion (in Polish with German translation). Olga Tokarczuk, the Nobel Prize winner of 2018, is coming to Bad Mergentheim! She brings with her her latest novel "Empusion," which fittingly takes place in a spa town. And what lies behind the mysterious title? A "thrilling, brilliantly interwoven story" (Der Standard), "incredibly great, incredibly funny, incredibly well-written" (FAZ)! The story is set in 1913, in a sanatorium for lung diseases nestled in the mountains – but no, it’s not in Davos; this "Magic Mountain" is located in Lower Silesia. Olga Tokarczuk draws richly and humorously from Thomas Mann’s great novel. In her tale, a young student arrives from Lviv with tuberculosis and checks into a guesthouse for gentlemen, where they love to engage in lofty discussions and philosophical debates, particularly about the bothersome women. But those women are already plotting their own form of retaliation... A true reading pleasure – and truly great literature! Beatrice Faßbender will moderate, the translator of "Empusion," Lisa Palmes, will interpret, and the wonderful actor and speaker Johann von Bülow will read.