Reading performance & Talk: „Striker” – By Helene Hegemann

N lives on a railroad line that connects a problem district with the residential area at the other end of the city. Two worlds. N knows both. And a third: the martial arts school where she teaches, prepares for competitions and begins an affair with a politician from the defense committee. Opposites characterize her existence: rich and poor, powerlessness and muscle building, the greatest discipline and excessive aggression against herself.
The new novel by author and director Helene Hegemann (“Axolotl Roadkill”, “Bungalow” and others, Kiepenheuer & Witsch) depicts a present in which conspiracy myths, class struggle and raw violence are becoming increasingly blurred.

“If she has any advantage in this sport, it’s that she’s not a man, she should have realized that by now.”

Together with Katharina Bach and Elias Krische, Helene Hegemann will read a dramatized version of the text, after which she will talk to Literature Festival curator Daniel Schreiber about wealth and displacement, and about martial arts as a home, outlet and language.