DEBÜTANT*INNENBALL: Anja Gmeinwieser / Martin Piekar / Lara Rüter - 40th Freiburg Literature Talk: Three Debuts in Conversation

Description

Anja Gmeinwieser: Wir Königinnen
Moderation: Leo Boquoi Three books, three songs, one evening! Three great debuts that pose big questions: What is a human, what is an animal? Who are my neighbors? What language do we speak?
Anja Gmeinwieser opens the series with her road novel "Wir Königinnen" (Berlin Verlag, 2026) and a mobile phone that "flies off a mountain with an exaggerated gesture" from the Alps. On the run from her too normal life, the narrator meets Anna, who is steering a heavy transport with pregnant cows to Turkey. What starts as a spontaneous "I'll come along" becomes an approach through international bad English and a sometimes hallucinatory mobile translator, a love affair between highways. But as it gets hotter in the transporter, the animals fall ill and Anna's boss doesn't pay, leading to a hellish trip – up to the EU's external border, where dreams and cows get stranded. "These two women are not just fictional characters, they are solidarity, hope, rebellion," writes author Mareike Fallwickl about Gmeinwieser's debut, which twists the classic Western plot of cattle driving and links it with questions of motherhood, work, and identity. Martin Piekar: From Felling a Family Tree
Moderation: Sonja Karadza When Martin Piekar read excerpts from his debut novel "Vom Fällen eines Stammbaums" (Rowohlt, 2026) at the Bachmann Competition 2023, he impressed with precise, poetic language – and a loud, long scream: the scream of a young man overwhelmed, growing up fatherless with his mother in a cramped two-room apartment, caring for her after a cancer diagnosis until her death. The young man is named Marcin. In the 1980s, his mother fled with him from Poland to Germany, working as a geriatric nurse, battling addiction. While Marcin searches for his place between video games, Nu Metal, and poetry, they live in a closeness between care and abysses. With his mother's illness, the family history comes to light in its full force: from memories, anecdotes, and painful insights, a portrait of a German-Polish family emerges, where war, migration, and social exclusion influence up to the present. Lara Rüter: Monkey Love
Moderation: Katharina Knüppel At the blackboard, Lara Rüter read the notice: "Help wanted in primate research." The poet spent five years in the monkey house of the Leipzig Zoo, reflecting there on closeness, loss, longing, and boundaries. Her essay "Affenliebe" (Hanser, 2026) explores the gap between humans and their closest relatives, mirroring in the peculiar social behavior of the animals personal experiences of the author: an abortion, during which she feels the political pressure of what women are supposed to want. The search for her biological father and her relationship with her "cuckoo father." A highly literary, permeable text has emerged, linking autobiographical and inventive storytelling with quotes from Roland Barthes, Emily Dickinson, and Martina Hefter, scientific questions, and scenes in the enclosure. ---
Photos: Anja Gmeinwieser © Linda Sier, Martin Piekar © Charlotte Werndt, Lara Rüter © Michael Bader Sponsors: Cultural Office of Freiburg, Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg, Sparkasse Freiburg-Nördlicher Breisgau, Guzzoni-Federer Foundation, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank
Cooperation partners: Theater im Marienbad, Bookstore jos fritz
Cultural partner: SWR Culture Date: 6.11.2026, 6–8 pm
Location: Theater im Marienbad, Marienstraße 4
Admission: 11/7 euros / combined ticket (including comic reading with Mia Oberländer) with drink: 18/12 euros Literature Talk
Outside the venue

Highlights

• Debutant*innen ball with Anja Gmeinwieser, Martin Piekar, and Lara Rüter
• Moderation by Leo Boquoi and Sonja Karadza
• Discussion on big questions of humanity and the animal world

General Information

The 40th Freiburg Literature Talk takes place at Theater im Marienbad and features three debut novels. The event provides a platform for new voices in literature and addresses central questions of identity and solidarity.

Location

Marienstraße 4, 79098 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

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