On the occasion of his 70th birthday, Heinz Rudolf Kunze makes a literary exclamation mark: Just in time for the Leipzig Book Fair, his new book "Gebrauchsgegenstand" is published – a work of rare clarity, urgency, and poetic power. Immediately afterward, Kunze embarks on a reading tour through Germany.
"Gebrauchsgegenstand" is a chronicle of the years 2019 to 2025, viewed through the sharp, alert eyes of one of the country's most important rock poets. Kunze observes, comments on, and condenses political developments, the threat to (freedom of) speech, and societal fractures – as well as love, pain, and the small joys of everyday life. Powerful in language, entertaining, precise.
He remains, as you know him: edgy, opinionated, uncomfortable. For decades, Heinz Rudolf Kunze has been involved in social debates – from the anti-nuclear and peace movements to "Band für Afrika" and "Rock against Right-Wing Violence". For him, attitude is not a statement, but a matter of course.
The 2026 reading tour makes this book an event: Kunze reads, tells, comments – directly, pointedly, close to the audience. Literature becomes an encounter, a diagnosis of the times, a dialogue. "Gebrauchsgegenstand" is his most personal, angriest, and tenderest book. Heinz Rudolf Kunze live – as close, as current, and as important as it has been for a long time.
Doors open: 7:00 PM
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
