From the curve star in Rafael Horzon’s furniture store: The end of pop literature?

That was in 2001, Funk read at the invitation of the writer and self-proclaimed pop literature inventor Joachim Lottmann, who lived above the curve star at the time and wanted to celebrate one “last long night of pop literature”.

This celebration has not necessarily gone down in literary history as a pageant of fame, but rather as a fun backroom laugh track, even though Tex Rubinowitz, a later Ingeborg Bachmann Prize winner, appeared and Wolfgang Herrndorf was also there.

Wolfgang Herrndorf was also there

Lottmann presented Herrndorf as “big,” even though he hadn’t yet written “Tschick” and “Sand” and “Work and Structure,” so hats off to Lottmann’s prophecy. Not to mention Mirna Funk, who is now also a well-known author and will soon publish her third novel “Balagan”.

I remember that the whole curve star evening had something of a desperation about it, because the meaning and purpose of the whole exercise remained in the dark, in the Lottmann twilight, so to speak. In retrospect, it is remarkable that pop literature with its protagonists such as Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre or Christian Kracht was already ringing many a death knell back then, but the final ringing has only begun now, almost a quarter of a century later. For example, with the oral history “Making Present” published by Erika Thomalla.

Or just with a reading by Joachim Lottmann last Saturday in Rafael Horzon’s furniture shop on Torstrasse, described by Lottmann on social media as a “Christmas miracle”. Probably because he is seriously ill with cancer. “Was that the final event for pop literature?” asked the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” a day later and reported a “very well attended” and “memorable” evening. Which brings a nice pop circle full circle, from the curve star in Horzon’s furniture store. But don’t let anyone think that pop literature never came out of Berlin-Mitte.