The Authors Club, in association with The German Circle, is delighted to welcome Anne Weber to the club to talk to Lucy Popescu about her latest book Sanderling, translated by Neil Blackadder, and published by Indigo Press. The evening will be introduced by Karin Rehacek.

Sanderling is a personal journey of exploration into the past, and the fascinating world of Florens Christian Rang (1864-1924), written by his great grand-daughter Anne Weber, one of Germany’s leading contemporary authors.

Rang, whom Weber nicknames Sanderling after the darting shorebird, began as a Protestant pastor stationed near Poznań in modern-day Poland, then part of Prussia. The church, which he subsequently abandoned, had a mission to ‘Germanise’ the local population. Weber draws parallels between this apparently benign ambition and the subsequent murderous intent of the Third Reich.

After his apostasy Sanderling became friends with several great early-twentieth-century thinkers, including Walter Benjamin, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Martin Buber, and joined a group of writers, artists and philosophers with whom he hoped to create a utopian society. Later on, his own son – Weber’s grandfather – became a Nazi.

Weber deciphers her great-grandfather’s letters and diaries, and travels in his footsteps to Poland. With literary and philosophical references including Sontag, Sebald and Nietzsche, Weber combines her family history with a broader examination of ethics and morality to create a travel diary through time, reaching back to understand her ancestors.

Anne Weber is an author, and a translator into both French and German. She studied in Paris and has worked for several publishers. She has written a dozen books, each in a German and French version. Her book Epic Annette has been translated into 15 languages and won the 2020 German Book Prize. She has also been awarded the Annette-von-Droste-Hülshoff-Preis and the Joseph-Breitbach-Preis.

7pm Weds 22 October

The Lounge, National Liberal Club
Open to members of the Authors’ Club, NLC and their guests.

FREE but booking essential 

Please book via Eventbrite.