On the borderline between picaresque novel and autobiography, the text tells of the turmoil of the 50s and 60s from the perspective of a child and teenager growing up in his parents’ butcher’s household: of happiness under communism, of escape, of cold capitalism in which things got hot and heavy, of reconstruction and 1968, of
poverty and axe, theft and cathedral singing school, of Gabi’s breasts, Renate’s mouth and Monika’s silver eyes, of the TÜV of killing, of abuse and plump red cherries, of a newt that can fly, of an unbelievable theater catastrophe. The text is tough, tender, exciting, full of poetry and comedy.

Klaus Weise: Theater, opera and film director and author. Born in Gera, 1958. His family fled the GDR; studied at the University of Film and Television in Munich; first prize winner of the Dr. Otto Kasten Foundation, 1985; has worked at renowned theaters in Germany – including as director and artistic director at Theater Oberhausen and the Bonn Theatre; guest productions at Theater Basel, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Vienna Burgtheater, in Munich, Dresden and at the Schwetzinger Schlossfestspiele.

Klaus Weise, Sommerleithe: Word walk of a childhood on this side and the other side of the zone border. Elsinor publishing house, 2021