Ewald Arenz (b. 1965) is a German writer. He began his literary career in 1987 with the publication of his first book, the poetry collection Wanderings (Wanderungen). In the 1990s, Arenz moved from poetry to short stories and novels. His work is characterised by a wide range of genres, allowing him to write magical realist and historical novels as well as classic love stories. To date, he has published around ten collections of short stories and twelve novels, two of which are available in Estonian. The first is The Great Summer (Der große Sommer), a poetic Bildungsroman in which the protagonist Frieder Büchner recalls, at his grandparents’ grave, a formative summer of his youth, when he first encountered the depths of love, friendship, responsibility and grief. His 2023 novel Love in Difficult Times (Die Liebe an miesen Tagen) tells the love story of two middle-aged people, Clara, a photographer, and Elias, an actor. The work may be seen as a modern fairy tale, a comforting alternative to the world’s troubles, in which love is, for once, allowed to prevail.
Ewald Arenz
