On Bookmaking – A Conversation, Reading, and Exhibition

The Freiburg-based 8 grad verlag focuses on southwestern Germany. Stories about the region and its people along the eponymous 8th meridian—and even beyond its borders—find a home here. The books are handpicked and crafted with meticulous care. Publisher Matthias Grüb, author Daniela Engist, and illustrator Petra Schuppenhauer will show how they come to be. They’ll offer insights into the editorial process and the creative journey—from idea to text, from text to image. A conversation about hard work, surprising moments, and happiness, a reading from “Mein Basel – Die bewegte Stadt,” and an exhibition of the original illustrations.

Matthias Grüb, Doctor of Ophthalmology and publisher. In 2021, he founded 8 grad verlag in Freiburg to give a new voice to Germany’s southwest—along the 8th meridian—and its neighbors France and Switzerland. Grüb lives and works in Freiburg.

Daniela Engist is a freelance writer, curator, and host. To date, she has published two novels (“Kleins Große Sache,” “Lichte Horizonte”), a literary portrait of a city (“Mein Basel”), and numerous short stories in anthologies. She worked as a communications and PR manager in Basel, earned a Ph.D. in linguistics, and studied German language and literature, English language and literature, and musicology.

Petra Schuppenhauer trained as an illustration designer in Hamburg and studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig and the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She lives and works as an illustrator and artist in Leipzig. In 2024, she was awarded the Hans Meid Prize for Illustration. Her works can be found in private and public collections.

The Goethe-Institut invites you to the event on November 4, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. Afterward, there will be an opportunity to mingle over a glass of wine.