Literature prize winner Markus Orths (2009) has come to the city of silk for the fourth time at the invitation of the “Other Book Shop”: His latest novel “Mary and Claire” was the topic of the evening in the Krefeld Mediothek. More than 30 people interested in literature came together in the foyer of the house – and many a passerby looked curiously at the people inside as they passed.
First, moderator Maike Engelen from the bookstore introduced her guest and his works. Markus Orths was born in Viersen in 1969, studied in Freiburg and lives with his family in Karlsruhe. He has written novels, short stories, plays and children’s books and has held two poetry lectureships or professorships. The novel “Mary and Claire” was published this spring. Mary is a true figure from the romantic era. She had famous parents, Mary Wollstonecraft, a dedicated women’s rights campaigner, and father, William Godwin, a social philosopher.
Mary’s mother died eleven days after her daughter was born, leaving the girl with a great deal of guilt. She is a melancholy young woman who spends much of her time in St. Pancras Cemetery. Markus Orths wanted to write about this Mary, famous for her “Frankenstein”, and at the same time create a picture of the early 19th century. But during the research and writing, another character came along: “Claire got in,” says Orths, “that’s the nicest thing about writing when a character from the book says, ‘Stop, I’m still here!'” Claire said at Jane by birth and was a stepsister of almost the same age whom Mary’s stepmother had brought into the marriage. “She was a sun being,” says the writer, “the two loved, sought and needed each other. They were day and night sisters.” When Mary then falls in love with the dazzling Shelley and the father is against the connection, the couple flees to Europe together with the sister. The result is social ostracism.
Claire also wishes for a grandiose poet as a partner. Your choice falls on Lord Byron. She incites sister and husband to a trip to Geneva, where the three meet Byron. This is where “Frankenstein” is created in the game “Who writes the scariest story?”.
Orths has gathered all these details from letters published in two volumes and from the diaries of Claire Clairmont – he discovered the subject of Mary Shelley while still a student. Now he has turned it into an atmospherically dense, historical novel about dark romance. A stimulating evening of literature.
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