Eine Übertragung

Wolfgang Hilbig’s first novel, published in the autumn of 1989, tells the story of the boilerman C., who leads the life of a simple worker in the GDR but secretly goes about the ‘illicit work of writing’. When he comes to the Stasi’s attention they have him arrested on a pretext and interrogated. Released from custody, C. flees the small town of M. for Berlin, where he hopes to order his thoughts and write in his former cellmate’s vacant apartment. During this task he finally loses his grip on reality. Can he trust his memories? Or is his reality only one of several variations? Who is really guiding his path in Berlin? Was he involved in murdering a woman?
A short story previously only existent in handwritten form is published for the first time in this volume of the complete works, forming the core of the later novel. The volume closes with an epilogue by Jan Faktor.