Journeys Through the Westerwald

With numerous images
Suhrkamp | Insel

Journeys Through the Westerwald / Unterwegs im Westerwald
With numerous images

The Westerwald is Hanns-Josef Ortheil’s home, a place we encounter again and again in his novels, travelogues and essays. It is the »primeval landscape of his life« that has shaped him.

In this volume he invites us to »explore the Westerwald and experience it in all its nuances! Its is a region that doesn’t show off with big cities, but with hidden and out-of-the-way places and vast forests and meadows where you’ll hardly ever meet another human...

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The Westerwald is Hanns-Josef Ortheil’s home, a place we encounter again and again in his novels, travelogues and essays. It is the »primeval landscape of his life« that has shaped him.

In this volume he invites us to »explore the Westerwald and experience it in all its nuances! Its is a region that doesn’t show off with big cities, but with hidden and out-of-the-way places and vast forests and meadows where you’ll hardly ever meet another human being!« He talks about his lifelong attachment to the rural area and portrays his small, very personal oases. We visit his native village of Wissen an der Sieg, explore his favourite areas in the Westerwald and hike near Marienstatt Abbey.

»[The book] combines lectures, novel excerpts, essays and reflections that capture what is typical of the Westerwald: the tranquillity of the landscape, its sweeping heights and narrow river valleys, the caginess of the people, their slow and earthy language, the modesty of the small towns whose beauty is only recognised at second glance.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»[The book] combines lectures, novel excerpts, essays and reflections that capture what is typical of the Westerwald: the tranquillity of the landscape, its sweeping heights and narrow river valleys, the caginess of the people, their slow and earthy language, the modesty of the small towns whose beauty is only recognised at second glance.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
2022, 247 pages
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Hanns-Josef Ortheil, born in 1951, is a writer, pianist, and professor of Creative Writing and Cultural Journalism at the University of Hildesheim. His literary work has received numerous awards including the Thomas Mann Prize in 2002.

Hanns-Josef Ortheil, born in 1951, is a writer, pianist, and professor of Creative Writing and Cultural Journalism at the University of...


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