City of pedestrians, flâneurs and hikers

David Wagner's wanderings take us through Berlin's main streets and quiet side streets, but also to the outer districts of Spandau and Tegel. They tell of chance encounters on the roadside, the night-time experiences of the deserted Corona city, but also of a new love for the buildings of concrete brutalism. David Wagner's observations of the city, written since 2001, are complemented by street texts written by writers such as Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Krakauer during the Weimar Republic. Their sketches and essays were read aloud by Andreas Bernard, who also provided an introduction to these authors' “mental images”.

David Wagner, born in Bonn in 1971, made his debut with the novel ‘Meine nachtblaue Hose’. In 2023, his collected Berlin stories were published under the title ‘Ich geh’ so gern durch diese Stadt’, and in August 2024 the novel ’Verkin!’

Andreas Bernard, born in Munich in 1969, teaches cultural studies at Leuphana University Lüneburg and is a writer for SPIEGEL's culture section. Recent book publications: The Chain of Infections: Zur Erzählbarkeit von Epidemien seit dem 18. Jahrhundert (2023) and Der Trost der Flipper (2024)