Erich Loest zum 100. Geburtstag. Thomas Loest im Gespräch mit Thorsten Ahrend

April 29, 2026 / 7.30 pm / Literature Café

Erich Loest on his 100th birthday

Erich Loest would have celebrated his 100th birthday on February 24, 2026. To mark the occasion, his son Thomas Loest and Thorsten Ahrend are presenting the two-volume biography "Lebensthema DDR" by Hans-Hermann Kestel.

Erich Loest's life and work reflect the fractures of an entire German century. Youthful Nazi enthusiasm, American war captivity, early SED member (1947), editor of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, first novel "Jungen die übrig blieben" at 24 (1950), studies at the Leipzig Literature Institute, seven and a half years in prison for "counter-revolutionary group formation", then writing under censorship conditions in the GDR, 1981 departure to West Germany, 1990 to Leipzig - these may be key words.

Hans-Hermann Kestel's choice to place the novel "The Eleventh Man" at the center of his account is as surprising as it is plausible, because it occupies a key position in Erich Loest's work. From it, interesting links can be drawn to Loest's well-known novels "Schattenboxen", "Es geht seinen Gang", "Völkerschlachtdenkmal", "Zwiebelmuster" or "Nikolaikirche". Loest always deals with central themes of GDR reality, the relationship between the working class and the intelligentsia, questions of housing, patriarchal structures and women's emancipation, illness and death and the longing of citizens to open up the world to themselves. And last but not least, Kestel puts Erich Loest's primary experience in a sharp light: the "murdered time" in the Bautzen prison. (Wallstein 2026)

Admission: 10,- / 7,- EUR ǀ Event organized by Literaturhaus Leipzig e.V.

Discounts are available for disabled persons and their accompanying person (only if entered in the disabled pass), unemployed persons, pupils and students (up to 35) as well as holders of the Leipzig Pass or an honorary pass, in each case only on presentation of the pass).