Ulrike Draesner, Reading

Co-sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies and the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic +.

Readings will be in German with projected English translation and bilingual discussion. 

Premiering in Madison!

Ulrike Draesner, renowned modern German author, will introduce her newly published novel, zu lieben” (to love) and poetry from another recent publication, Poesiealbum Ulrike Draesner.

Inspired by her own journey through adoption and motherhood, Draesner’s novel explores themes of love, courage, and parenthood. zu lieben delves into the personal and emotional challenges of adopting and raising a young child from Sri Lanka who does not speak German. Through her narrative, Draesner highlights the struggles and triumphs of bridging cultural differences, offering a message of hope and compassion, and providing an opportunity to reflect on the evolving concepts of family and parenthood in our contemporary world.

This is your chance to meet this award-winning German author in Madison for the very first reading from these two new books!

Ulrike Draesner born in 1962 in Munich, is a poet, a writer of long and short fiction and cultural essays. She has published six major poetry collections, eight novels, two of which were nominated for the German Book Prize, three collections of stories, and various collections of essays. Draesner has received numerous literary prizes, most recently the Gertrud-Kolmar-Prize for Poetry (2019), the Prize of Literatour Nord (fiction, 2020), the Bavarian Book Prize (2020), the German Prize for Nature Writing (2020), the Großen Preis des Literaturfonds (2021), the Spycher-Preis Leuk of Switzerland (2023) and the Literaturpreis Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation 2024. She has been awarded poetic readerships at German and international Universities. Draesner lived at Oxford as poet in residence in 2015-2017; in 2018 she was appointed Professor for Creative Writing at the Deutsche Literaturinstitut Leipzig, and the taught German Literature and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College/US in 2022. She is a member of the P.E.N. Germany, the Berlin Academy of Arts and the German Academy of Language and Poetry.

Learn more on instagram: draesnerulrike

und www.draesner.de