Reading by Tom Scherer, Schauspiel Hannover, with an introduction by Gabriele Sand

“A young man returns home to Lagos after several years in America, to the place of his childhood, which he left many years ago. He stays with relatives, meets old friends, drifts through the streets. Lagos is exhausting and corrupt, promise and burden at once, full of stories of spiritual greatness and depravity. Every night is a futile attempt to find rest. And every day a mirror in which he sees himself ever more clearly. Should he stay or flee? In Teju Cole’s luminous sentences, which express a great, broken love, a poetic portrait emerges of a troubled country and Africa's largest metropolis.” (Ullstein Verlag)

Teju Cole, born in the USA in 1975 and raised in Lagos, is one of the most distinguished writers and photographers of his generation. In novels, essays and photobooks, he explores cities, memory and the act of seeing itself. Jeder Tag gehört dem Dieb (Every Day Is for the Thief) is his first book. It was published in Nigeria in 2007 and later revised and expanded with his own photographs. In it, text and image combine into a vivid portrait of Lagos.

"With a fascinating eye, open to the terrible and the beautiful alike, he draws the metropolis of Lagos into his web of language in shimmering fragments. Great literature." (Jan Wilm, FAZ) Tom Scherer, a member of the Schauspiel Hannover ensemble since the 2022/2023 season, has played leading roles in Mio, My Son and The Rider on the White Horse as well as in the production Deutsch, du Schuft!. Alongside his theatre work, he is also active as a voice actor and presenter and works in film.

A Reading as part of the exhibition Crystalline by Karimah Ashadu. It will be held in German.