Zu Lieben (To love)

In Ulrike Draesner's most personal book, a journey into the unknown begins with a flight to Sri Lanka, where a child is waiting for its future parents. It deals with fears, tenderness, identities between continents, misunderstandings and danger. How does one become a family? What does parenthood mean in a society in upheaval, in which more and more children are growing up in unfamiliar family constellations? The process is incalculable. The surprises are many and the humor is essential. How does Mary, the three-year-old girl who has to change worlds, feel? What happens to the couple? And once the return flight has been made, how do they find their way as a colorful family in a Germany of white people?

Full of life experience, Draesner tells a deeply moving story about the love between mother and child. As close, open and warm as you have ever read.

Ulrike Draesner was born in Munich in 1962. She lives with her daughter as a freelance writer in Berlin and Leipzig, where she has been director of the German Literature Institute Leipzig since 2018. Over the past 25 years, she has published seven volumes of poetry, seven novels, several collections of short stories and essays, radio plays, translations and has been involved in numerous intermedia projects.

Kastanienallee 97

10435 Berlin

(Reading in German)