Pfauen
‘This is a book about foreignness, both external and internal. It is an experience that exemplifies the fate of many people. It is dedicated to all those who live in the middle of nowhere.’ Michel Friedman A child consumed by fear arrives in Germany – the land of the murderers who wiped out his parents’ family. Here he is supposed to put down roots and build a life. The child of stateless parents does what he can. He wants to be a child. He wants to dream. He wants to live. But all he experiences is anti-Semitism, racism and exclusion – and a traumatised nuclear family that threatens to suffocate him with fear and worry. Michel Friedman, a lawyer, philosopher and publicist, was born in Paris in 1956 and has been living in Frankfurt am Main since 1965. He comes from a Jewish-Polish family; his parents survived the Holocaust because they were on the Schindler’s list. In a very personal text, Michel Friedman paints a disturbing picture of adolescence in a world that is perceived as alien and dangerous. The result is a touching, poetic kaleidoscope of an existential feeling that must be dissected lest it consume the soul.
The writer Melinda Nadj Abonji, winner of the German and Swiss Book Prizes, and Michel Friedman discuss how the feeling of being a stranger can be conveyed and expressed in literature, what it means to them personally and also in the dramatic nature of today's political environment.
Roger de Weck, one of Switzerland's most prominent journalists, has just published a book called Das Prinzip Trotzdem – Warum wir den Journalismus vor den Medien retten müssen [translating to The Principle of Nevertheless – Why We Must Save Journalism from the Media]. He will moderate this discussion on otherness, community and exclusion.
Supported by René und Susanne Braginsky Stiftung
