Reading and discussion with Kerstin Hensel and Carola Wiemers

Welcome by Annett Gröschner

Tickets

Kerstin Hensel reads from her recently published book Abendgruß (Evening Greeting) and talks to Carola Wiemers about family histories from East and West Germany, about narrow-mindedness and false morality.

Book cover Abendgruß Kerstin Hensel — Book cover *Abendgruß* Kerstin Hensel

Kerstin Hensel's new book Abendgruß (Evening Greeting) comprises two poetic stories about family and life in East and West Germany. With subtle irony, Kerstin Hensel tells the story of Karin and Wolf Kohlmann, siblings who grew up in the late 1960s in the GDR, in a chemical town in central Germany. Wolf wants to leave and pursues a career as a cameraman and photographer in the capital. But his sister Karin forces him to return home – to the confines of the prefabricated housing estate, to the supposedly ideal world of their childhood.

In the second story, we follow the fate of Tillandsia Grütz, a young woman born in the first minute of the year 2000, a nerd girl who lives in her own world. As admired as she is lonely.

Participants

Kerstin Hensel was born in Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1961. After training as a nurse, she studied at the Institute for Literature in Leipzig. She is considered one of the most versatile and influential representatives of contemporary German literature. Her work includes poetry, novels and short stories. She teaches at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. Since 2024, Kerstin Hensel has been director of the literature section of the Akademie der Künste. Kerstin Hensel lives in Berlin.

Carola Wiemers, born in 1957, is a literary critic and author and lives in Berlin. After studying German and Scandinavian languages and literature, she worked as an editor in Helsinki and Stockholm. She wrote her doctoral thesis on Ingeborg Bachmann and has published works on Elfriede Jelinek, Irmtraud Morgner and Tomas Tranströmer, among others. Together with Kerstin Hensel, she published the book Schmoren im Paradies. Eine kulinarische Erzählung (Braising in Paradise: A Culinary Narrative).

Annett Gröschner, member of the Akademie der Künste, was born in Magdeburg in 1964. She is a writer, theatre maker and journalist. Her work has been awarded numerous scholarships and prizes, including the Fontane Prize (Grand Art Prize Berlin) of the Akademie der Künste in 2021 and the Mainz City Writer's Prize in 2025. As a journalist, she is a co-founder of PEN Berlin. Gröschner lives and works in Berlin.

Kerstin HenselAbendgruß3/31/2026, 7 PM

Kerstin Hensel reads from her recently published book Abendgruß (Evening Greeting) and talks to Carola Wiemers about family histories from East and West Germany, about narrow-mindedness and false morality.

Kerstin Hensel
Abendgruß
3/31/2026, 7 PM