Buchpremiere mit Evan Tepest – »Sind Penisse real?«

In the organizer's words:

Evan Tepest asks "Are penises real?" - and we answer: "Premiere!" Together with artist Philisha Kay, Evan Hugo Tepest comes to Silent Green on September 5th to celebrate the release of his new book and give an insight into and behind the scenes of this deeply personal and clever essay.

"Ever since I can remember, I've been convinced I couldn't be a man without a penis." Evan is in his mid-thirties when he begins his transition. In the chaos of his new masculinity, he searches for answers to what penises mean to him, to his body, to his self-image. For who he was, who he is and who he can be. In society and in bed. To find out, he talks to people - with and without penises - about fears and power, about cultural history and its significance, about sexuality, size and fantasies. And writes disarmingly unabashedly about a body part that is much more than that. In "Are penises real?", sexual desire meets the narrowness of current norms, literature and theory meet faith, the feeling subject meets patriarchy, centuries-old gender concepts meet radical openness. An eye-opening essay, so excitingly clever, personal and political.

"With unerring sensitivity, Tepest explores her own body in transition. This thoughtful essay - melancholy in its temperament, resolute in its sincerity - tells of nothing less than this universal human paradox: that we must first become others in order to return to ourselves. We will one day count this book among the standard works of queer longings in the German language. There is no doubt about that." Senthuran Varatharajah

Evan Hugo Tepest is an author living in Berlin. In August 2025, his essay Sind Penisse real? will be published by Piper Verlag. His first novel Write Your Mother's Name was published in 2024 and his essay collection Power Bottom in 2023. His texts have also appeared in anthologies and magazines, most recently in ER: Erotic Review (London) and DANKE - Das Fan-Fiction-Magazin (Basel/Berlin).

Philisha Kay, artist, curatorial assistant and part of the collective dgtl fmsnm, which stands for feminist, queer and tec-positive perspectives on technology narratives, deals with (posthuman) identity, art and the queerfeminist use of technology. Her focus is particularly on the potential of (digital) imaginaries and technologies as subversive tools for the creative (de)construction of the self and for the aesthetic reconceptualization of gendered (body) reality. Philisha lives in Berlin and works as a project-based freelancer in various functions, e.g. as a (digital) designer, curator and moderator.

The event is a cooperation between Buchbox and PIPER.

Admission starts at 7 pm, the reading at 7:30 pm

Price information:

Reduced 12 Euro