Ines Geipel

In the organizer's words:

Fabelland: The East, the West, Anger and Happiness

Literature

On November 9, 1989, the Wall falls in Berlin. It is one of the happiest moments in German history. Ines Geipel had already fled to the West in the summer and experienced the rupture of time, the hopes and new beginnings as a student in Darmstadt. 35 years later, she remembers: How did it feel, this historic moment of happiness? How do we tell each other about East and West and reunification? Where does all the anger and denial come from when it comes to the current state of the country? On this evening, Ines Geipel goes back in time with great clarity and openness. Back to the political landscape of upheaval after 1989, back to her own family, back to all the obscured, occupied spaces of memory, back to the trivializations and legends that so poison the present.

Ines Geipel is a writer and professor of verse at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. The central theme of her work as an author and editor is the violent German history of both National Socialism and the GDR dictatorship. Her latest book Fabelland. Der Osten, der Westen, der Zorn und das Glück has been nominated for the German Non-Fiction Prize 2025.