When I ate brandy cherries with Hitler

In the anniversary year marking the fall of the Berlin Wall, Manja Präkels will read from her award-winning novel about the fall of the Wall, "Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß" (When I Ate Schnaps Cherries with Hitler)

Time: Tuesday, October 29, at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences · Furtstraße 2 · Blue Box, Auditorium · Görlitz

About the book

Country life between lethargy and a zest for life. Mimi and Oliver are neighbors and fishing buddies in a small town on the Havel River. They play soccer together, take the Pioneer Oath, and secretly get drunk on their parents’ schnapps-soaked cherries at family parties. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, their friendship also shatters. Mimi sees herself as the last Pioneer—Timur without a squad.
Oliver, under the nom de guerre “Hitler,” becomes one of the leaders of marauding youth gangs. In the blink of an eye, his crew takes control of the streets and squares. Then the situation escalates completely…

In her debut novel, Manja Präkels tells the story of the collapse of the GDR against the backdrop of a small-town idyll in Brandenburg, the reappearance of ghosts thought to be lost, and themes of friendship and anger.

The author

Manja Präkels, born in 1974 in Zehdenick/Mark, is the singer of the highly acclaimed band “Der singende Tresen” and the author of the poetry collection “Tresenlieder.” She is co-editor of the narrative anthology “Kaltland – Eine Sammlung,” a classic of post-Reunification literature.

For Verbrecher Verlag, she collaborated with Markus Liske to compile the Erich Mühsam reader “Das seid ihr Hunde wert!” (2014) as well as the volume “Vorsicht Volk! Oder: Bewegungen im Wahn?” (2015). Präkels has received numerous awards for her work, including the Alfred Döblin Scholarship from the Academy of Arts (2005) and a scholarship at the Writers’ House Ventspils, Latvia (2012–13).

Manja Präkels was awarded the 2018 Kranichstein Youth Literature Scholarship and the 2018 German Youth Literature Prize for her debut novel *Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß* (When I Ate Schnapps Cherries with Hitler).

She also received the 2018 Anna Seghers Prize for this novel.

Anti-Discrimination Policy
The organizers reserve the right to exercise their right to deny admission to the venue and to refuse entry to or remove from the event any individuals who belong to far-right parties or organizations, are associated with the far-right scene, or have previously made racist, nationalist, anti-Semitic, or other inhuman remarks.