Dichter zu Gast – Daniel Kehlmann
Die Küste Utopias

In German and English

Duration: approx. 2 hours

CAST

Daniel Kehlmann, Tom Stoppard, Adam Thirlwell

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Tom Stoppard, one of the internationally most frequently performed dramatists, has set standards for the way in which history and philosophical ideas can be brought to life in the theater, especially in his plays Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia and Rock'n'Roll. Topics that hardly seem predestined for the stage acquire a dramatic energy and emotional power in his hands, and his exploration of the failure of grand utopias is among the most subtle works of world literature on the subject of the fall of socialism. This reading in German presents excerpts from the 2002 trilogy The Coast of Utopia, the production of which won Tom Stoppard the Tony Award for Best Play in 2007.
Afterwards, Tom Stoppard, the British novelist Adam Thirlwell and Daniel Kehlmann will discuss the topic “Drama and History” (in English).

Daniel Kehlmann was born in Munich in 1975, the son of theater director Michael Kehlmann and actress Dagmar Mettler. In 1981, the family moved to Vienna, where he attended the Kollegium Kalksburg, a Jesuit school, and subsequently studied philosophy and German literature at the University of Vienna. In 1997, his first novel, Beerholms Vorstellung, was published. He has held literary teaching positions in Mainz,Wiesbaden and Göttingen and has won numerous awards, including the Candide Prize, the Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Doderer Prize, Kleist Prize, WELT Prize for Literature, the Per Olov Enquist Prize and the Thomas Mann Prize. Kehlmann’s reviews and essays have been published by numerous magazines and newspapers. His novel Ich und Kaminiski was an international success, the novel Die Vermessung der Welt, translated into forty languages so far, became one of the most successful novels in post-war Germany. Daniel Kehlmann lives in Vienna and Berlin. As “Poet in Residence”, he is the curator of this year's literature program at the Salzburg Festival and has invited different artists to present their work, their view of the world, our times and also of Austria, together with him.