Menden in the north of the Sauerland. Here lives Kathrin Heinrichs, in a quiet single-family house on the edge of the forest. In her latest book, the author takes a look outside her home. She describes the story of a flight from Silesia, which begins in World War II and ends in the present day. It is a book that addresses farewell as a theme, yet tells of an approach.
Three women from three generations come together in the novel. There is Burgel, who has to flee from Breslau to the Sauerland as a small girl in 1945. Burgel's daughter Ina, who years later cares for her mother suffering from dementia and argues with her husband. And finally, the student Jule, Ina's daughter, who struggles with her future plans. They all grapple with the loss of securities. "I want to show how influences and traumas are passed down within a family," says Kathrin Heinrichs. "And how closely present problems are intertwined with the past." Every workday begins for Kathrin Heinrichs in the forest. Together with her mixed-breed dog Bruno, she takes long walks there to clear her head. In the forest, she does not write stories but thinks them. Among rustling leaves and chirping birds, Heinrichs plans chapters, rewrites passages, invents new characters.
In her study, her ideas become concrete. Notes with plot ideas are scattered around, alongside nonfiction books about Silesia. Photos of her deceased parents hang on the wall, next to a stuffed raven that her father shot once. Even though her workplace is a retreat: Kathrin Heinrichs does not fit the cliché of the introverted writer who toils alone on her text. She regularly stands on stage as a cabaret artist, slips into eccentric roles, or presents satirical crime stories. "For me, this is the ideal complement to the solitude of writing," she says.
Since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, however, their stages have remained empty. In the first weeks, she found it difficult to focus on her work. The existential worries were too great, the weight of the global crisis too heavy. Only gradually did she find her way back to concentration. And to the novel idea that she had been carrying with her for a long time. For many months, Kathrin Heinrichs researched, conducted interviews, and dealt with the familial "roots" of her novel characters. The Corona aid from the state gave her the freedom to dedicate herself entirely to this project. A first manuscript is now complete.
"A book of the soul" – this is how Kathrin Heinrichs describes her first novel. Much personal experience has flowed into the text. Because some problems and worries that Burgel, Ina, and Jule face are familiar to the author from her own life. Heinrichs's mother is herself a "refugee child." When she fell ill with dementia, she looked back into her childhood in flashbacks – and began to tell stories.
Kathrin Heinrichs accompanied her mother during this tumultuous process. She helped her to record long-suppressed memories in a diary, an important source for her novel project. "As terrible as dementia was, remembering the past brought my mother and me closer together again," says Heinrichs. "I could understand much better why my mother is the way she is – and in doing so, understand myself better as well." Her book, she says, is therefore also a story about arrival. "There isn't a solution for every stroke of fate," says Kathrin Heinrichs. "But there is an afterward."
