During the 2026/27 winter semester, the Institute of German Literature and Comparative Literature and the Centre for Contemporary German Literature at Paderborn University invite all interested parties to a series of literary readings followed by discussions. Over the past few decades, this event series has already brought more than 250 renowned contemporary authors to Paderborn University. The readings from their works will take place every Monday at 4.15 pm in Lecture Theatre G at the university. Admission is free. The events are organised and hosted by Prof. Dr Norbert Otto Eke and Prof. Dr Stefan Elit. The series is held with the kind support of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL), the Rotary Club Paderborn-Kaiserpfalz and the Kunststiftung NRW. Those interested can find further information and an overview of all dates on the event page.
To set the scene for the reading series, Prof. Dr Norbert Otto Eke will give an introductory lecture on 19 October on the question “What is contemporary literature?”.
26 October: Christoph Peters reads from his novel “Entzug”
To kick off the series, the writer Christoph Peters will present extracts from his work ‘Entzug’. Peters, who is known beyond the German-speaking world, was born on 11 October 1966 in Kalkar on the Lower Rhine. He studied painting at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe from 1988 to 1994. In 1996, he was awarded a scholarship to the artists’ village of Schöppingen. In 2004, Peters held the Poetry Lectureship at the Academy of Sciences and Literature at the University of Mainz; in 2008, the 22nd Tübingen Chair of Poetics, and in the winter semester of 2014/2015, the 33rd Paderborn Visiting Chair for Writers. In 2017, he took up a further poetry lectureship at the University of Bonn. He lives in Grömitz (on the Baltic Sea) with his wife, the writer Veronika Peters.
To date, Peters has published, amongst other works, the short story collections “Kommen und gehen, manchmal bleiben” (2001) and “Sven Hofestedt sucht Geld für Erleuchtung” (2010), the poetry collection “Die lieben Lande” (2015) and novels such as “Stadt Land Fluß” (1999), “Ein Zimmer im Haus des Krieges” (2006), “Mitsukos Restaurant” (2009), “Wir in Kahlenbeck” (2012), “Der Arm des Kraken” (2015) and “Dorfroman” (2020). Between 2022 and 2024, he published a highly acclaimed series of novels inspired by Wolfgang Koeppen’s “Trilogy of Failure”, and in 2026 his latest novel, “Entzug”.
Peters has received numerous awards for his work: His honours include, amongst others, the Martha Saalfeld Encouragement Prize (1998), the aspekte Literature Prize (1999), the Lower Rhine Literature Prize awarded by the City of Krefeld (1999 and 2022), the Rheingau Literature Prize (2009), the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, Bad Homburg (2016), the Wolfgang Koeppen Prize (2018) and the Thomas Valentin Literature Prize from the City of Lippstadt (2021). He has also been awarded the Lower Rhine Literature Prize of the City of Krefeld (2022), the Christian-Friedrich-Daniel-Schubart Prize (2025) and the Franz-Hessel Prize 2026.
2 November: Thomas von Steinaecker reads from his novel “Schwestern”
The following week, the audience will gain insights into Thomas von Steinaecker’s novel “Schwestern”, which focuses on female perspectives. Born on 6 February 1977 in Traunstein, the writer, director and audio artist studied literary studies in Munich and Cincinnati and was awarded his doctorate in 2006 with a thesis on “Literary Photo-Texts. On the Function of Photographs in the Works of Brinkmann, Kluge and Sebald”. He has been publishing literary texts in magazines and anthologies since the late 1990s. Furthermore, even before the publication of his debut novel in 2007 ("Wallner beginnt zu fliegen"), he was awarded a fellowship by the Literary Colloquium Berlin (2003/2004). He now lives in Augsburg as a freelance writer and television director.
His awards include the Hattinger Encouragement Prize (1996), the Aspekte Literature Prize (2007), the Bavarian Arts Promotion Prize (2007), the Authors’ Prize (2010), the City of Augsburg Arts Promotion Prize (2011), the Bavarian Culture Prize (2015) and the Carl Amery Literature Prize (2017). In addition, he was a fellow of the German Literature Fund (2007) and has been a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature since 2021. In 2015, he received an Echo Klassik award for his television documentary ‘Richard Strauss and His Heroines’.
To date, von Steinaecker has published a wide range of short stories, novels, radio plays and films, including the short story ‘Götz – Eine Travestie’ (2004), the novels “Wallner beginnt zu fliegen” (2007), “Geister” (2008), “Schutzgebiet” (2009), “The Year I Stopped Worrying and Started Dreaming” (2012) and “The Defence of Paradise” (2016), as well as the graphic novel “The Summer of Her Life” (2017) and his novel “Schwestern”, published in 2026. Steinaecker’s portfolio also includes radio plays and film scripts, amongst them “My Tape Recordings Are My Resistance” (2007), the audio story “Heartbeat Sounds” (2010) and the documentary films "Karlheinz Stockhausen: Musik für eine neue Welt“ (2009), „Bewegte Republik Deutschland“ (2014), „Die großen Musikrivalen“ (2019/2020), and „Rilke – Du musst dein Leben ändern“ (2025).
Further readings will take place on 9, 16, 23, and 30 November.
This text was translated automatically.
