KRIWET, Ferdinand
Heidelberg Er–Serie

The “Heidelberg Er-Serie” (1961) is an early work by Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) and is now the property of the poet-artist’s estate. It is published here for the first time in its entirety and in the form he conceived: 8 loose sheets that can be read in any order. “Since they are not regimented,” says Kriwet, they can “live all the more intensely towards one another”. The series was written at the same time as Kriwet‘s debut novel “Rotor”, which was published by DuMont in 1961 and remains one of the most radical prose texts in post-war German literature. In the “Heidelberg Er-Serie”, the then only 19-year-old Kriwet experimented with different text levels, differentiated through the combination of stamped and typewritten passages as well as by the employment of three different font sizes. At the same time, these levels are interlocking and must be read in relation to each other. During the following years he refined this method of typographic text conception, through which he sought to enable a new reading experience. This he did most notably in the circular “Sehtexte”, which brought him international recognition.

Edited and with a German text by Christoph Benjamin Schulz.

[publisher's note]

Published by Grass Publishers, 2022
Bookworks / Poetry / Games