Tristan Marquardt & Andreas Töpfer / Heike Geißler / Radka Denemarková - 40th Freiburg Literary Forum: Three Readings with a Discussion
Tristan Marquardt & Andreas Töpfer: *catalog of catalogs*
Moderator: Martin Bruch
Catalogs about friendship and love, emptiness, light, and sleep; about astonishing idioms and forms of lies; and lists of words rarely used in everyday life but perfectly suited for it. In this brilliant artist’s book, words by Tristan Marquardt and drawings by Andreas Töpfer engage in a poetic dialogue—in search of a new language to describe the world. The “catalog of catalogs” (kookbooks, 2026) presents an inspiringly clever, witty, and incisive organization of feelings, things, and phenomena.
The two artists—one working with words, the other with images—have been collaborating since Tristan Marquardt’s poetry collections *das amortisiert sich nicht* (2013) and “scrollen in tiefsee” (2018), both published by kookbooks—the publishing house founded in 2003 by freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and draftsman Andreas Töpfer together with Daniela Seel. During the literary discussion, Töpfer will draw live while Marquardt reads.
Heike Geißler: Michaela Kohlhaas
Moderator: Annette Pehnt
In her daring reimagining (Suhrkamp, 2026), Heike Geißler transports Heinrich von Kleist’s vengeful 16th-century horse dealer Michael Kohlhaas into the present day and transforms him into the rebellious cemetery caretaker Michaela.
Fueled by long-suffered arbitrariness and powerlessness, she becomes a rebel and embarks on a merciless campaign of vengeance against all the greedy and ruthless. Where Michael Kohlhaas murders and pillages, she reduces her city to rubble and ashes with the sheer power of her words and thoughts: escalation, exaggeration, sabotage, and spectacle are her weapons. As a citizen who pays no heed to rules or authority, she is declared insane. But once she has ignited the resistance, it spreads unstoppably. Her goal is nothing less than a complete restructuring of the world. “Heike Geißler writes the most fast-paced, vivid prose of resistance in contemporary German literature,” according to the FAZ. She speaks with her fellow writer Annette Pehnt about her tender, foul-mouthed, ranting, loving heroine.
Radka Denemarková: “Schokoladenblut”
Moderator: Thomas Geiger
“A life-changing journey through time” (SZ), “the ultimate catalyst for the mind” (Die Presse), “a magic mirror” (Olga Tokarczuk): In “Chocolate Blood” (Hoffmann und Campe, 2026, translated by Eva Profousová), the multi-award-winning Czech writer Radka Denemarková takes us into the small writing room of the author Bozena Nemcová, who laboriously pens a patriotic fairy tale whose message she herself does not believe in. George Sand, her French contemporary, is able to defy the constraints of convention and writes novels with a light touch. On the other side of the Atlantic, J.D. Rockefeller, the first billionaire in world history, builds his empire on a thick, brown commodity.
In her new masterpiece, Radka Denemarková tells the story of the 19th century and its protagonists: global in scope, highly topical, brilliant. Fresh from the Frankfurt Book Fair—which this year honors the Czech Republic as its guest of honor—the author, playwright, essayist, and translator also brings with her her second novel to be published in German this year, *Kobold*.
---
Photos: Tristan Marquardt, Dirk Skiba, Andreas Töpfer (private), Heike Geißler, Heike Steinweg, Radka Denemarková, Karel Cudlín
Sponsors: City of Freiburg Cultural Office, Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts, Sparkasse Freiburg-Nördlicher Breisgau, Guzzoni-Federer Foundation, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank
Cooperation partners: Theater in the Marienbad, jos fritz bookstore
Cultural partner: SWR Kultur
Date: November 7, 2026, 3:00–6:00 p.m.
Location: Literaturhaus Freiburg, Bertoldstraße 17
Admission: 11/7 euros
Literary Discussion
Literaturhaus
