On the Silesian Magic Mountain

*As part of the* **43rd Baden-Württemberg Literature Days**, Polish Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk will be honoring us with her presence, and we can look forward to a reading and discussion (in Polish with German translation).* Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, is coming to Bad Mergentheim! She will be bringing her latest novel, *Empusion*, which is aptly set in a spa town. And what is behind the mysterious title? An "exciting, furiously interwoven story" (Der Standard), "insanely great, insanely funny, insanely well written" (FAZ)! It is set in 1913, in a sanatorium for lung diseases in the middle of the mountains – but no, not in Davos, this "Magic Mountain" is located in Lower Silesia. Olga Tokarczuk draws heavily on Thomas Mann's great novel, with a great sense of humor. In her version, a young student with tuberculosis arrives from Lemberg and stays in a guesthouse for gentlemen, where they enjoy discussing and philosophizing in a pompous manner. They are particularly fond of talking about the tiresome women. But the women have long since been fighting back in their own way... A real pleasure to read – and great literature! Beatrice Faßbender will moderate, *Empusion* translator Lisa Palmes will interpret, and the great actor and speaker Johann von Bülow will read.