On June 27 at 20:00 in the CATS courtyard, there was reading and discussion with author Philipp Weiss, currently poet-in-residence with the project “Epochal Life Worlds”. His novel Am Weltenrand sitzen die Menschen und lachen (At the Edge of the World People Sit Laughing) offers a panorama of entangled stories and histories and explores languages and forms of approaching the narration of the Anthropocene: Between France and Japan, from the 19th to the 21st century, the novel depicts a Panopticon of our multilayered reality. Each of the five volumes of the novel employs a unique form, including an encyclopaedia, manga, novella, audio-transcription, and a notebook, highlighting the multiplicity of human experiences and perspectives.

The novel has been widely acclaimed, received several awards (including Best German Language Debut Novel 2018) and been translated into French and Chinese. Christine Lecerf from “Le Monde” calls it a “mesmerizing experience, both of reading and thinking”: “Equipped with an astonishing sense of ease, the Austrian writer manages to conquer the daunting challenge of the subject matter’s totality to unfold the image of a world on the ‘verge’ of self-destruction and to draw his transfixed reader into a network of infinite possibilities.” (Find out more about the book here)