Dusseldorf. In 1936, the journalist Maria Leitner used a foreign passport to gain access to the then banned “Heine Room” in the Düsseldorf State and City Library. Now Reclam Publishing has reissued her debut novel “Hotel Amerika”. To mark this occasion, the Heinrich Heine Institute, Bilker Straße 12-14, invites you to a staged reading on Saturday, November 30th, at 7 p.m.
The dream of prosperity is far from being fulfilled for most of the characters in Maria Leitner’s “Hotel Amerika” – the Irish laundress Shirley, the Swedish chambermaid Ingrid and the German kitchen boy Fritz toil under harsh conditions in a New York luxury hotel. The novel tells a day in her life that initially begins quite normally. But then the uprising is rehearsed in the canteen.
Actress Jasmin-Nevin Varul will read passages from the novel. In addition, the literary scholar Anna Weber, who researches “German-Jewish Women’s Life Writing in Exile,” provides insights into the background of the novel and into Maria Leitner’s spectacular life. Nora Schön from the Heinrich Heine Institute moderates the event.
Admission costs eight euros, reduced price four euros. To register by phone at 0211-8995571 or [email protected] is requested.
