Ingo Schulze at the Galle Literary Festival 2012

In 2012 the Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka is contributing to the Galle Literary Festival with the invitation of a well known German author.

Ingo Schulze will be represented in the programme with three events on January 19, 20 and 21.

Ingo Schulze, born in Dresden in 1962, studied classics and German language and literature in Jena before working as dramatic arts advisor to the State Theatre in Altenburg.

Schulze is regarded as one of the most reliable chroniclers of German reunification.

In his work he shows a particular interest in this turning point in history and in the conditions of hope and helplessness experienced by the people who unexpectedly became involved.

At the same time, large connections are vividly wrought in the fine detail of things: “For me, literature means seeing the world in a drop of water,” the author has said.

Ingo Schulze prefers to dispense with pathos in his novels. His works focus on the fears, worries,hopes and losses experienced by the citizens of the former GDR, finding ever-new forms to express them: from episodic novel to a novel in letters, short stories to the recent tragi-comedy Adam und Evelyn (Adam and Evelyn). Now that an interval of almost 20 years has passed, Schulze goes back to 1989 and confronts his characters with a dilemma: should they opt for a new future in the West, or should they cling to the old and familiar? As in his earlier work, simple stories, there is no single right or wrong decision for his protagonists.

Whereas the narrative in Simple Storys (1998) was conceivable only in episodic form, focussing on several individual fates, in Adam und Evelyn, Schulze returns to the original human story of prohibition and temptation.

His narrative conveys a lightness of touch which is surely only possible at some time-distance from the events.

Ingo Schulze has been awarded numerous prizes, including the aspekte Prize (1995), the Berlin Literature Prize (1998), the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair (2007) and the Grinzane Cavour Prize (2008).

His acceptance speech for the Thuringian Literature Prize in 2007 received much attention for denouncing the increasing re-feudalisation of the cultural establishment due to the society’s general economical restructuring.

The author, whose work has been translated into thirty languages,and who was awarded a grant by the Villa Massimo in Rome in 2007, has been living in Berlin since 1993. (sources: http://www.literaturfestival.com; www.goethe.de)

Events with Ingo Schulze:

Thursday (January 19) 9 - 10.30am
Galle Literary Festival panel
Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Responsibility in Literature.
Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, Dr. Stewart Motha,
Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu and Ingo Schulze.
(Hall de Galle) Free.

Saturday (January 21) 6.30- 8pm
Sunset Series: Stories at Sunset.Ingo
Schulze and other writers, moderated
by Ashok Ferry (Closenberg Hotel) Free.

Friday (January 20) 4-5pm
In Conversation: Ingo Schulze on Simple
Stories and New Lives
(Maritime Museum).

Contact: Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka
[email protected]
Tel. 011 26945