We welcome author Gregor Hens for a Lesung und Gespräch (in German & English) at 4:00 pm in Dwinelle 3335 and at 7:30 pm, Goethe-Institut Auditorium, 530 Bush Street, San Francisco.

One of Germany’s finest young authors, Gregor Hens, professor of German at Ohio State University, will read from his works, which have earned high praise from German critics.

Himmelsturz (2002), acclaimed by Die Welt as the “best debut novel” of the year, tells the story of a German-American professor whose perfect marriage is called into question when he and his spouse hire an architect to build their dream house. Transfer Lounge (2003), a collection of transatlantic short stories, is a “literary answer to the terror attacks in New York” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), dealing with passion, force, unexpected shocks, and sudden turns of events in the lives of the protagonists. And in his latest book Matta verläßt seine Kinder (2004), Karsten Matta, a post-conflict analyst for an international consulting company, decides one day, while waiting at the Pakistani embassy, to escape his past. “A book about love and despair, an original story, which goes to the heart of our time.” (Fischer Verlag)

Contributing regularly to Die Zeit and other newspapers as well as publishing academic texts in linguistics, poetics, and composition, Hens divides his time between his two residencies in Ohio and Berlin.