Books & Beers is an evening gathering that will showcase new work released by the Cologne-based publishing house parasitenpresse. The main focus of the programme will be fiction from visiting Czechia. It will feature Elsa Aids, Petr Šesták and Klára Wang Tylová, a trio of powerful writers united by their weariness with global capitalism and piercingly accurate descriptions of lives of drudgery within it. A sweaty delivery bicycle messenger does his best not to perish under the wheels of a large car; in a satellite village beyond a metropolis, someone is masturbating in boredom; meanwhile, it slips our mind that we have been living with the dead the whole time. The Czechs will be complemented by three German authors, translator Susa Wolfrum, and a musical accompaniment.

Elsa Aids, Petr Šesták, Klára Wang Tylová. Moderation: Adrian Kasnitz