One Day with … Arnon Grünberg

Arnon Grünberg’s writings are among the most unusual contemporary literature of the Netherlands and have been translated into 30 languages. At a high pace, the author, who was born in Amsterdam in 1971, pushes forward into the grey areas of our times, telling Kafkaesque tales of the legal system in Arabic states or – with a nod to Hitchcock’s “Psycho” – of how we try to evade caring for and involving ourselves with the elderly. Furthermore, Grünberg embarks on an “embedded project” every summer – he takes on a different identity to lose his “fear of contact with reality”. He has worked as a maid in a Bavarian hotel, accompanied the Dutch army to Afghanistan, was a dining car waiter in Switzerland and a masseur in Romania. In the summer of 2016, he will work as a butcher. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, which will feature Flanders and the Netherlands as guest countries this year, Arnon Grünberg will give the literary opening speech.

“One day with … Arnon Grünberg” will present the author’s many different facets in readings, conversations and a lecture on his “living archive”, which is maintained by the University of Amsterdam. Apart from the German launch of Grünberg’s new novel “Muttermale (Moedervlekken)”, another book will be presented in Germany for the first time on this day: the childhood memories of Grünberg’s mother, Hannelore Grünberg-Klein, who grew up in Berlin-Wilmersdorf before she had to leave the country with her parents to escape the Nazis.

There will be the opportunity to get your books autographed by the author.