What may appear on the surface to be a simple narrative, a short anecdote, or a minor description often reveals, upon closer inspection, a number of far-reaching connections that lead into historical, philosophical, and psychoanalytical depths. Frank Witzel explores such ‘complex structures’ in his new book of the same title. In eighty texts, the author examines structures ranging from harmlessness to humiliation, from parables to school breaks, from pupation to willpower in a manner that is both narrative and self-reflective. The result is an idiosyncratic panorama of an encyclopedia of chance, which, precisely because it is not limited to a single style or theme, reveals a vibrant system subject to constant change.
In profoundly virtuoso texts full of adventurous storytelling, which sometimes turn out to be narratives and sometimes anecdotes, Frank Witzel shakes the foundations of a world that seems to know itself rather inadequately.
"In addition to irony and eloquence, it is above all the constant questioning that makes Witz's work so fascinating. In desperation, doubt never turns into despair." – Ulrich Rüdenauer, PHILOSOPHIE MAGAZIN
Literature
Frank Witzel has published numerous radio plays, essays, and novels, including The Invention of the Red Army Faction by a Manic-Depressive Teenager in the Summer of 1969, for which he received the German Book Prize in 2015, and Sweet Shipwreck (2020). In 2017 he received the Poetics Lectureship from the University of Heidelberg, and in 2018 the Poetics Lectureship from the University of Tübingen; he also held the Friederichs Endowed Professorship at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach.
