Martina Hefter / Arne Rautenberg / Julia Weber - 40. Freiburger Literaturgespräch: Drei Lesungen mit Gespräch
Martina Hefter: Looking at the Sun
Moderation: Annette Pehnt
Iona Bartschok sees the future towering so high above a lake in the southern part of Leipzig that she wants to plunge into it. Five thousand years, far enough from the present, but still close enough for her new project. The installation artist is spending the summer in a converted industrial hall in the midst of a artificially flooded open-pit mining region, characterized by spoil heaps and a constant wind. She seeks distance from her city life after a painter sprayed the word "bullshit" on one of her most important artworks, a treehouse. A dog runs up to her, the combative niece of her landlord stands at the door, and as the wind outside intensifies, flooding the streets with rain, life forcefully pushes back into the hall.
As in her novel "Hey good morning, how are you?" which was awarded the German Book Prize 2024, the writer and performance artist Martina Hefter succeeds in creating an atmospherically charged narrative with "Looking at the Sun" (Klett-Cotta, 2026). About a woman who embarks on a journey, as light-footed as it is existential.
Arne Rautenberg: 19 Doors
Moderation: Katharina Knüppel
"Among contemporary German poets, Arne Rautenberg is a wondrous double and triple talent," writes the literary scholar and poet Heinrich Detering. Light-footed and sure-footed, he balances with his volumes of poetry, children’s verses, and visual artistic works at the boundaries of genres, between poetry and graphics, image and text.
The latest collection "19 Doors" (Wunderhorn, 2026) gathers "lyrical mobiles, graceful little art machines" (FAZ), powered by the wind that blows in Rautenberg's Schleswig-Holstein homeland. The sea and the coastal landscape form one of the poetic resonance spaces in which nature and language connect. The verses lead further to Rome, which the author explores as a fellow at the Villa Massimo, and time and again into art and literary history. And, behind the 19 doors, into an unconscious realm, to the origin of language, its peculiar nature – to where it is magic, wonder, and risk.
Julia Weber: Because I am Ruth
Moderation: Martin Bruch
A work that stands out from Swiss contemporary literature: In her third novel, Julia Weber boldly, sensually, and unwaveringly tells the story of Ruth, who is born with a fur and has a magical access to the world. Her story captivates like a long, fantastic dream and touches on questions of humanity and animality, violence, and community.
"For me, art has a lot to do with attentiveness and comfort and should still be a place that shows the world uncompromisingly," says the author. Her narrative is carried by a language that translates such contradictions into a richly imaginative contemplation of the world as it is or could be. After her novels "Everything is Always Beautiful" and "The Blending," Julia Weber worked for ten years on "Because I am Ruth" (Limmat, 2026) – on a narrative cosmos in which the power of transformation resides.
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Photos: Martina Hefter © Maximilian Gödecke, Arne Rautenberg © Birgit Rautenberg, Julia Weber © Ayse Yavas
Sponsors: Cultural Office of the City of Freiburg, Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg, Sparkasse Freiburg-Northern Breisgau, Guzzoni-Federer Foundation, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank
Cooperation Partners: Theater im Marienbad, Bookstore jos fritz
Cultural Partners: SWR Culture
Date: 7.11.2026, 10–13:00
Location: Literaturhaus Freiburg, Bertoldstraße 17
Entry: 11/7 Euros
Literary Conversation
Literaturhaus
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
