House Stapel

Ralph Tharayil reads from Take away the Alps. He tells of a childhood in Switzerland. The story is about the endeavour to want to belong and not give up one's origins. There is the nameless brother and sister who speak in chorus. There is a home with Ma and Pa, who appear like a deity with their four arms. There is the speed of the bicycles that the children ride out to their games: to the telephone box, to the rubbish tip, into the reeds. And then a new child joins the class and paves the way for the siblings out of their own inner mountains.

The café-restaurant DROSTE 1797 serves homemade cakes, tea and coffee.

The Lesebürger*innen are an open club for anyone who enjoys literature! Once a year, the Lesebürger*innen get together for a party. Over snacks and drinks, we celebrate the past year and look ahead to 2024.

Sabrina Janesch reads from her novel Sibir. In the story of an emigrant, she tells of two childhoods in the 20th century. One at the time of the Second World War in Central Asia. And once fifty years later in northern Germany. The word that ten-year-old Josef Ambacher picks up sounds terrifying: Siberia. Adults use it for everything that lies in the distant, foreign East. It was there, to Kazakhstan, that hundreds of thousands of German civilians were deported by the Soviet army in 1945, including Josef. He finds himself in a harsh, but also wondrous, mythical world - and learns to assert himself against the steppe.

Mühlheide, 1990: Josef Ambacher is confronted with his past when a wave of resettlers arrives in the small town in Lower Saxony after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His daughter Leila is caught between two worlds and has to mediate - at a time when she herself is trying to understand and banish the ghost of history. Sabrina Janesch's novel tells of the search for home, the ghosts of the past and the love that is able to conquer them.

Come with the forest and water elf Querkus into the wild world of words! Follow in the footsteps of the writer Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and explore the landscape between her two homes, Burg Hülshoff and Haus Rüschhaus, in Münsterland. You will discover magical creatures and little treasures along the way. And you will learn a lot about nature and everyday life in Nette's time, as well as how the world has changed since then. On your walk through the Droste landscape, you will be accompanied by the elf and his friends as well as words from Annette.

The actress Sarah Giese reads from the children's book Annette, Querkus and the Wild Words by Cornelia Funke. The illustrator and puppet maker Sara-Christin Richter will bring along the puppets from the children's book. She will show how the world of the characters was created.

The café-restaurant DROSTE 1797 will be serving cocoa and homemade waffles.