Literature scholarship 2024
A glamorous farewell - Stefan Hornbach bids farewell as the second literature scholarship holder
Stefan Hornbach, the second literary scholarship holder of the City of Chemnitz, said goodbye with a reading and performance at Weltecho on 14 October 2024.
Under the title "Wo liegt Glamnitz?" (Where is Glamnitz?), the evening was dazzling: together with other artists, Stefan Hornbach acted as host, presenter and entertainer and presented his own texts that were written during his time in Chemnitz. "Glamnitz" is an art and culture project founded in 2018 that began as a micro-project for the Capital of Culture bid. This was followed by several events in the theatre club, the Gunzenhauser Museum, on the Sonnenberg and in the factory.
"Glamnitz" stands not only for glamour and glitter but also for quirky beauty, lust, whimsy and extravagance. The project description states: "Glamour is something that few people would associate with the city of Chemnitz at first glance. The neologism Glamnitz is intended to draw attention to this area of tension and also invite people to fantasise about what Chemnitz could still be and what it could look like in the future."
After the project had become quieter over the past three years, Stefan Hornbach's residency as part of the City of Chemnitz's literature scholarship provided the initial spark to revitalise the "Glamnitz" series with the original founders and new accomplices. So it wasn't goodbye forever for Stefan Hornbach.
The second literature fellow of the city of Chemnitz lived here from the beginning of April to mid-October. He addressed the following questions to Chemnitz city society via the citizens' platform: 1. what have you been looking for in Chemnitz so far in vain? 2. what would you miss elsewhere? 3. where in Chemnitz is Glamnitz?
Stefan Hornbach also wrote his second novel, visited events, cultural associations and creative artists and, for example, took over the bookshop "Monokel" for a day. He organised the Literary Salon at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz as part of the "Hanna Bekker vom Rath" exhibition in September and accompanied a workshop in the writing workshop of the "Rummelplatz" project with his predecessor Arna Aley.
Stefan Hornbach applied for the City of Chemnitz literature scholarship with the first chapter of his debut novel "Surviving the Dog". The jury praised the author's narrative style, with which he manages to "tell credible scenes in just a few sentences that convey an emotional range of pain, fear, humour and confidence that is carried over when reading," said Marcus HeinMarcus Heinke (Project Manager for Culture at the Chemnitz Network for Cultural and Youth Work) said in his laudatory speech. Stefan Hornbach proves to be someone "who listens well, who finds and adapts exactly the words that sound so light and loving, but always aptly creates situations that repeatedly pose a question: Who am I? Who do I want to be?" He was chosen as a suitable scholarship holder because he has an accessibility that does not require a theatre space and does not shy away from directness.
