On 28 May at 7 p.m., the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid will host a reading with the famous Swiss writer Klaus Merz about his work Jakob duerme, recently translated into Spanish by Carlos Dante Capella and published by Tres Molins. On 29 May, the reading will take place at the Instituto Goethe in Barcelona at the same time.
Jakob duerme tells the poetic story of two brothers -one disabled- who with ingenuity, audacity and caustic humor confront the supposed normality in Switzerland in the sixties. In brief snapshots, Merz recounts scenes from a different childhood, in which the Renz brothers are confronted with prejudices against illness and disability, in a delirious trajectory always on the edge of the abyss. With astonishing ease and a look as sharp as it is minute, Merz guides his characters through the bumps and catastrophes of their precarious lives in this magnificent autobiographical account.
Born in 1945 in the Swiss town of Aarau, Klaus Merz is considered the most important German-language poet in his country. Debuted in 1967 with a book of poems and since then has published over twenty titles which also include short stories, plays and essays. From the international success of Jakob duerme, Merz has earned a wide reputation as a master of short narrative prose. Among the many awards he has received are the Hermann Hesse Prize, the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize and most recently, in 2024, the Grand Prix de Littérature suisse for his work as a whole.