Oniritti Cave Paintings

The bright world above, the dark world below: even when walking through the city, there are cave entrances everywhere: on the path to love, to justice or to games. Botho Strauß explores the tunnels of history and myth, of the present and dreams.

Those who are alive are surrounded by pictures – by stories that are made up of pictures. Man and woman in a lifelong search for themselves, the couple; one who steps onto the stage so that the absurdity of life is set aside for a few hours; a man who is forced to read the last book by his torturer. The images that Botho Strauß conjures up and the scenes he narrates are graffiti from the depths of dreams. And like in a dream, the reader quite suddenly recognises his own face in what at first appears so mysterious.

Botho Strauß’ new book opens a new, unfamiliar chapter in his exploration of our world of images, both present and past, and deciphers the writing on the cave walls of the night.