Gleichzeit

Right after Hamas’ attack on Israel, Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Ofer Waldman begin to write one another about a devastated world – the world after October 7th, 2023. In letters and chats, with poems and music that they send one another, both authors attempt to describe and name what they see and experience – beyond the headlines of the day. Ofer Waldman talks about his daily life in Israel. He sits shiva, talks with his children, goes to vigils, listens to the sounds of the war. Sasha Marianna Salzmann condenses their experiences and observations in different cities around Central Europe. Salzmann sits by the memorial to the murdered Jews on the Danube in Budapest, argues in coffeehouses in Vienna, and watches the flashing lights of the police convoy on Hermannplatz in Berlin.

What is left of the old certainties after October 7th, what has endured the vortex of opinions and positioning? And what seems to be lost forever as a consequence of the horrific war in the Middle East? Over the course of approaching these questions in a narrative way, a dialogue emerges that becomes more and more of a poignant document of a friendship: I see you, say these letters, I cannot do anything, but I am here.


Photo/Bookcover © Laura Nádvornik/Suhrkamp Verlag