28 February 2019. "Escape into narration". The title of this year's poetry lecture by the Swiss writer Jonas Lüscher will take the audience along on just such an escape. On three evenings, he will treat three different topics: on the first evening, on 7 March, he will talk about the relationship between quantitative bedazzlement and narrative arbitrariness. He will examine the question as to why we find ourselves in an age today which is characterised by the story of this relationship.

A week later, on 14 March, Jonas Lüscher will focus on a biographical movement and how a narrative can do justice to an individual case. On the final evening, on 21 March, he will ponder the question whether writing can be compatible with political activism in the first place and how committed literature interacts with the committed writer.

Winner of the Swiss Book Prize
Jonas Lüscher was born in Schlieren in 1976 and grew up in Berne. He attended a teachers' training college in Berne. In 2009, he graduated in philosophy in Munich, and in 2011, be started to write a doctoral thesis in philosophy at ETH Zurich but did not conclude this project. In 2013, his first novel Frühling der Barbaren ("Spring of the barbarians") appeared, which was immediately well received by both critics and readers and was nominated for the Swiss and German Book Prizes. His second novel, Kraft ("Force", 2017) also generated an enthusiastic echo across the board. Jonas Lüscher was awarded the Swiss Book Prize for it.

Picture: Ekko von Schwichow