zwischen/miete nrw mit Rina Schmeller

"When I saw him again, I showed him the stains on my arms. Pulled my sleeve up a little. 'This must never happen again,' I said. As soon as I said that, he started to cry.

A few months later, we got married."

Rina Schmeller's debut novel "Co" (Penguin Verlag) draws its audience into a seemingly endless loop of attraction, violence, the attempt to break away - and yet return again.

The narrator's fragmentary memories make it tangible how his addiction increasingly takes over and gradually suppresses her self.

He revolves around alcohol, she around him.

Painfully close and yet sensitive, Rina Schmeller traces the years-long journey of her protagonist as she gradually fights to regain her self-determination and her ego.

Rina Schmeller was born in Leipzig in 1986, studied literary writing and general and comparative literature in Berlin and received several residency scholarships, including at the Kölner Schmiede 2018.

The reading is conceived, staged and moderated by students from the University of Cologne under the direction of Marlene Jäger (Niederrheinisches Literaturhaus der Stadt Krefeld) for zwischen/miete nrw, a reading series for shared flats and other special places. During and after the reading, they offer space for exchange and special access to the world of "Co", from which the audience can take away a little something.

The event series takes place in cooperation with the Literaturhaus Bonn and Tilman Strasser, together with the Literaturhaus Köln, the Literaturbüro NRW, the Literaturbüro Ruhr and Burg Hülshoff - Center for Literature. Funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. In cooperation with the University of Cologne.