Urs Widmer
Das Geld, die Arbeit, die Angst, das Glück.

English Title: Money, Work, Fear, Happiness

Its title is its programme. Widmer’s columns and essays are about matters close to our hearts. What role does money play in our lives? How does work influence our self-definition? What are we afraid of? What makes us happy? The subjects of the texts range from everyday life to social problems. They describe the dissolution of the collective memory, the hysteria of our society, the catastrophic year 2001. They deal with immortality, with the first rapper Homer, and with the desire to think, just for a moment, with someone else’s brain. It contains brilliant essays on ambivalent Nabokov heroes and Joseph Conrad’s ›Heart of Darkness‹. And an outline of Helvetian history on the example of Gottfried Keller’s ›Fähnlein der sieben Aufrechten‹.

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