Alexander Estis works in small literary forms: He writes prose, lyrical and scenic miniatures, essays and regularly provides glosses, columns and commentaries. In them, he deals - sometimes satirically, sometimes seriously, mostly critically and always form-consciously - with the contemporary cultural scene, with literature and its social impact, with politics, war and anti-Semitism.

In his last volume of short prose, Fluchten, he wrote about realistic and absurd attempts to escape. He described very different forms of escape from family or friends, work or love relationships, his own body or life, but also from war-torn cities.

"In addition to stylistic diversity, his writing is characterised by a fusion of prosaic and metrical form, satire and seriousness, essays and fiction as well as words and images," explains organiser Dr Luisa Banki. The idea for the reading is being realised by the literary scholar as part of her Short Contemporary Prose and Feuilleton courses together with the Alte Synagoge Wuppertal meeting place and the Katholisches Bildungswerk Wuppertal/Solingen/Remscheid in cooperation with the INSEL.