LiteraturSchweiz

Reading tip

Kathrin Schärer, Johanna im Zug: We are sitting alongside the artist at her worktable. In front of us lie coloured pencils, brushes, scissors, Max Frisch’s «Biography: A Game» and a nearly empty sheet of paper. A railway locomotive and two wagons have been outlined. «I’m drawing a long train, a train with lots of wagons. Does that make a story yet?», she asks. Yes, a beginning, certainly. Then the train’s passengers are introduced – a goat, a dog, a cow and a small pig: Johanna. Johanna intervenes in the story, prevents the small polar bear (is it Hans de Beer’s Lars ?) from getting into the wrong train. She asks for company and makes the acquaintance of a wolf, a fierce monster. Eventually she begins to banter with Jonathan, a pig from another train. Which should do, right? The two pigs pull the piece of paper from the artist’s hand and release her to work on the next story...