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ePaper created 2015-05-12, 15:30:36 | version 1.38.0
Degree: M. A. in Philosophy Fields of study: Philosophy, German studies, and everything offered by Studium Generale Current position: I’m a singer, songwriter, and composer and write songs in five languages (German, English, French, Italian, Spanish). I also sing in Yiddish, Russian, Armenian, Hungarian, and Sicilian. I want contribute to international understanding and initiate a dialogue between nations and generations with my songs. After an exciting year in New York, where I opened for Herbert Grönemeyer at Manhattan’s rock temple Irving Plaza among other things, I’m touring Germany again and am happy to be able to enjoy the quality of German food again! In addition, I appear regularly on SWR radio as an author and a moderator on SWR2 music shows. Culinary high point: The saxophonist Maceo Parker at the Freiburg cafeteria! Foods at the cafeteria I liked less: Rice pudding, because I cook it myself. Strangest occurrence at the cafeteria: The daily struggle to come up with even more exotic-sounding names for dishes while using the same old ingredients – things like tofu quail à la Louis Quatorze in emperor’s cream sauce, for instance. Personal notes: The cafeteria was a good place to talk with your friends and do impersonations of professors, provided that one had a good voice. It was always loud, and stuffy. But there was always enough to eat, at least if you went back for seconds. It was great to sit outside on the beer garden benches in the summer, and the salad bar at the University of Education cafete- ria – yes, I was unfaithful – had the longed-for fresh food, and you didn’t have to scream there. In my tiny student apartment on Hammerschmiedstraße (180 DM a month) I ended up learning from my Japanese Friend Yumiko how to wash rice, that you’re supposed to wash it in the first place, and how to cook Japanese. Around the world with a hot plate – those were the highlights. Thank you, Yumiko. And thank you, cafeteria. What student has the time to cook in the middle of the day anyway? Sincerely, Gesine Heinrich Tofu Quail à la Louis Quatorze TALES FROM THE CAFETERIA: GESINE HEINRICH Many fans consider Uta-Maria Heim’s novels to be regional detective stories. However, although their settings are often identifiable as somewhere in Swabia and the protagonists speak a characteristic dialect, it isn’t quite that simple. Her 1992 novel Rattenprinzip (“Rat Principle”), which won the German Detective Novel Prize, and its sequel Wespennest (“Wasp Nest”) are not set just in the country but also in a large city. The Stuttgart of the time after the reunification and today, re- spectively, provides the rough and tumble, hard-boiled atmosphere for the stories. Many Unresolved Questions Heim’s detective novels are regional, but by no means do they reproduce a rural idyll. In a polemical article for the Stutt- garter Zeitung, the author writes of a kind of flight from the traditional detective novel, which is becoming increasingly literary, to the so-called homeland detective novel (“Heimatkrimi”), which remains conservative and generally has a satisfying ending. She notes that this subgenre is especially popular in southwestern Germany, “a region of exploding global demands.” Thanks to Uta-Maria Heim, the liter- arization of the genre is encroaching on the territory of the homeland detective novel. A review in the newspaper taz categorizes her current novel, Wem sonst als Dir (“To Whom Else but You”) as a Swabian regional detective novel in the broadest sense. But even the title is a quote from the German poet Hölderlin, the book is packed with allusions and symbolism, and the plot revolves around Nazi atrocities and German terrorism. There are many unresolved questions at the end. Heim doesn’t let her readers off the hook so easily. Martin Jost Uta-Maria Heim was born in 1963 in the Black Forest town of Schramberg. She stud- ied linguistics, literature, and sociology in Freiburg and Stuttgart. She published her first book in 1985. It has been followed by 25 more to date, more than half of them detective novels. Heim has worked as a script editor for radio plays at the broadcaster SWR since 2006. She lives in Baden-Baden. Photo: private The singer Gesine Heinrich had to have a good voice in the cafeteria – to talk with her friends and do impersonations of professors. Photo: private BETWEEN THE LINES: UTA-MARIA HEIM Regional, but Not Idyllic Gesine Heinrich learned how to wash rice, that you’re supposed to wash it in the first place, and how to cook Japanese in her apartment, not at the cafeteria. Photo: Jultud/Fotolia 17