5 March 2012. There are three questions that get writers into difficulties. Firstly: “Have you done any research?” Secondly: “Can you live off writing?” These two questions are annoying because they implicitly cast doubt on the writers’ seriousness. The third question, “Why do you write?”, drives writers to despair. They are unable to answer it since they rarely understand their own motives. Also, they do not want to answer it because an answer would not help them in their work. So they push the question aside and devote themselves to their actual activity, i.e. writing.

Lectures in the "Raum für Literatur"

But if writers are honest, every kind of writing is about a “why”. Thus they ask themselves: What do I expect to achieve with literature? Does it have a function? Do I want to change the world? Why do I tell stories? Why do I believe that people need stories and that I should tell them?

Lukas Bärfuss will try to provide answers in those three evening lectures, which will take place on Mondays from 6.15 p.m. in the “Raum für Literatur” in the Post Office Building by St.Gallen Main Railway Station (South Entrance, St.Leonhard-Strasse 40, 3rd floor).

The most widely performed contemporary German-language dramatist
Lukas Bärfuss, born 1971 in Thun, started to work as a freelance writer in 1997. He was a co-founder of the theatre group, 400asa, for which he wrote several plays, among them the grotesque Meienbergs Tod about the journalist Niklaus Meienberg, with which he became known in 2000. In 2002, he had his first prose piece published, namely Die toten Männer. At present, Bärfuss is working as a dramaturg in residence at the Schauspielhaus Zürich.

Photo: Photocase / Susann Städter