Romanpremiere: Felix Geiser, „Werkstadt“

The VW plant in Wolfsburg, Germany’s largest industrial complex, suddenly lies abandoned following the company’s bankruptcy. The site, threatened with decay, is gradually being inhabited, occupied, and transformed by artists, homeless people, ravers, former employees, families, and eccentrics. The resulting space is, for some, an existential necessity; for others, a testing ground or a final idealistic endeavor.

The novel *Werkstadt* explores this sociotope from multiple perspectives. The protagonists—Lena, Henry, Dina, and Walter, whose life circumstances and ideas differ greatly—grapple with fundamental questions of social coexistence in a neoliberal world of isolation. “Werkstadt” becomes both the text and the setting of a utopia that does not imagine a near or distant future, but rather attempts to bring the unthinkable into the present—here and now—and in doing so also raises questions about utopian writing itself.

Felix Geiser, born in Munich in 1991, lived in Barcelona and Mexico City for some time after completing his studies in sociology before moving to Hildesheim to pursue a master’s degree in Creative Writing and Editorial Studies. His texts have already appeared in various anthologies and journals. He is co-editor of the ultra-romantic anthology *Reizüberflutung* (Edition Paechterhaus, 2019), served as an editorial member for the podcast series *Litradio*, and, together with other creatives, organizes the *Blade Festival*. In 2020, he was the Schwaz City Writer; in 2021, he received a grant from VG Wort; and in 2023, he spent time at the Kunsteremitage on Rietzer Berg. Felix Geiser lives and works as a writer, freelance editor, and member of a pub collective in Berlin.