FERNGESPRÄCH: Charlotte Brandi und Miriam Böttger

In the organizer's words:

A DISTANCE TALK about families and their follies. With music by Charlotte Brandi!

Two debuts full of black humor, two family and coming-of-age novels from the daughter's point of view. In Charlotte Brandi and "Fischtage", it's a young woman who tries to escape her crazy family of artists and sets off on a journey; in Miriam Böttger's novel "Aus dem Haus", the daughter looks back at the neurotic family of naysayers who also all want to get out of the house - albeit for completely different reasons.

"Fish Days": Sixteen-year-old Ella lives in Dortmund and has decided to stop having friendships. She is too afraid that she will scare other people away with her tantrums. Her parents' marriage is on the rocks and Ella has no access to her two siblings either. Her only confidant has always been old Eckard, who is now slipping into dementia and asks Ella to look after his singing plastic fish. When her younger brother Luis disappears, Ella sets off with the fish in search of him and puts herself in great danger - equipped with an Aldi bag, too much courage and too little fear.

Charlotte Brandi was born in 1985 in Herdecke and grew up in Dortmund. Her parents are the actor and musician Peter Freiberg and the musician Klara Brandi. Charlotte Brandi initially worked primarily as a theater musician and became known to the general public as part of the duo Me & my Drummer, which disbanded in 2018. Since then, she has been making a splash with her solo records and is part of the supergroup Die Benjamins, which includes Annette Benjamin and Drangsal.

"Out of the house": The first-person narrator's pessimistic family is convinced that all their misfortune comes from the house they live in. When the parents decide to finally give up the house and move into a smaller apartment, this should actually be a relief. But as soon as they sell, the unhappiness magnet appears in a completely new light. As the day of the move draws nearer, the father's daily telephone reports become increasingly bizarre. And she realizes that this is about something completely different than a move.

Miriam Böttger is a journalist at ZDF and an avid reader of David Foster Wallace and Thomas Bernhard. She has been writing for as long as she can remember, but has never had the time (family) to submit her novel to a publisher. That changed a few months ago. Miriam Böttger lives in Berlin.

Moderator: Thomas Koch

The FERNGESPRÄCH series is a joint initiative of the literaturgebiet.ruhr network, supported by the Kunststiftung NRW.

Price information:

Advance booking 16 euros, Box Office 18 euros. RuhrKultur.Card holders receive their ticket at half price.