Judith Schalansky is this year’s Heinrich Heine Guest Lecturer at Leuphana
2026-06-11 Lüneburg. From June 18 to 20, author and book designer Judith Schalansky will serve as the Heinrich Heine Visiting Lecturer at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. She is known for books such as “The Giraffe’s Neck” and “A List of Some Losses,” which was awarded the Wilhelm Raabe Prize in 2018. She edits the Naturkunden series for the publisher Matthes & Seitz Berlin.
On June 18 at 7:00 p.m., Judith Schalansky will give a public lecture in Lecture Hall 3 at Leuphana. Together with moderator Maike Albath from Deutschlandfunk, she will discuss her work, her poetics, and her book “Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel. Woraus die Welt gemacht ist” (Marble, Mercury, Fog: What the World Is Made Of). Published this spring, the work comprises three texts—part essay, part narrative—in which Schalansky explores the material conditions of life and, not least, her own writing.
A nearly 17-ton white block of solid marble, which she encounters on a ferry off the island of Thassos, marks the beginning of her latest work and leads the author to marble quarries and sculpture studios, as well as through the dark, often violent history of material extraction and the appropriation of the world. In the second text, a workshop at the art academy in Guadalajara turns into a daring, mercurial performance in defense of book culture, and the reconstruction of a long-ago ascent of the usually fog-shrouded Brocken points to the illuminating aspect of the unknown.
During the summer semester, students under the guidance of Julian Osthues engaged with the work of Judith Schalansky. In a two-day workshop, they now have the opportunity to exchange ideas with the author. This meeting between students and the author is an integral part of the program. The 2026 Heinrich Heine Visiting Professorship is sponsored by Sparda-Bank Hamburg, the District of Lüneburg, and the Lüneburg Regional Association.
About the Author
Born in Greifswald in 1980, Schalansky studied art history and communication design. Her work, including the internationally successful bestseller “Atlas of Remote Islands” and the novel “The Giraffe’s Neck,” has been translated into more than 20 languages and has received numerous awards, including the 2018 Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize, the 2020 Premio Strega Europeo, and most recently the 2025 Lessing Prize. She is the editor of Naturkunden and lives in Berlin as a designer and freelance writer.
About the Guest Lectureship
The Heinrich Heine Guest Lectureship is a collaborative project between the Literaturbüro Lüneburg and Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Each year, a highly regarded author from the literary world is invited to the Hanseatic city to give a public lecture and lead a short seminar at the university. Accompanying this, a seminar is offered during the summer semester that focuses on the guest lecturers’ works. This gives Leuphana students direct access to contemporary literature and provides them with insights into the authors’ creative work. Since 2009, Uwe Timm, Juli Zeh, Ingo Schulze, Feridun Zaimoglu, Ursula Krechel, Jenny Erpenbeck, Saša Stanišić, Abbas Khider, Antje Rávic Strubel, Peter Stamm, Helene Hegemann, John von Düffel, Ulrike Draesner, Gregor Sander, Zsuzsa Bánk, Raphaela Edelbauer, and Olga Grjasnowa have visited the university.