FAs many as four million copies of “Tschick” have been sold to date. 3.8 million, to be exact, as of April 2024, fourteen years after the novel was published. But since Wolfgang Herrndorf's story about two Berlin boys who steal a car in order to run away to Wallachia and look for their place in the world has immediately become school reading, it may only be a matter of time until the next two hundred thousand copies . And so on.
The school reading thing more or less started by itself. Soon after “Tschick” was published in fall 2010, the first teachers contacted the publisher who had studied Herrndorf’s novel in their German class and were now asking for teaching materials. Since then, “Tschick” has been on the curriculum in German schools.
There is now a new website, “Tschickucation”, which answers many questions about the book and its author (although not all of them, that would be even nicer, it is literature). Questions like: What is Marzahn? What is Wallachia? How does a watch work as a compass? What is Risi-Pisi? And who was this Wolfgang Herrndorf, what else did he write and why did he have to die so early?
The literary and juvenile criminal law background to the story about the car stealers Maik and Tschick is also explained. “Tschickucation” was created on the initiative of the Herrndorf family and is looked after by Herrndorf’s widow, the Berlin author Carola Wimmer. A biographical website, ueberwolfgang.de, had been set up a long time ago, “Tschickucation” is more practice-oriented, more playful, the answers come as a video clip, encyclopedia and quiz.
“The idea came about during the Corona period,” says Carola Wimmer, “when it became clear that digital educational offerings were rather poor. That has now changed, but most of the better learning options are chargeable. For me, 'Tschickucation' was about the old Internet ideals: well-processed and easily accessible information for everyone. That's why 'Tschickucation' is also optimized for smartphones.”
Herrndorf used the Internet as a social and artistic tool like no other German-speaking author of his time. So it's fitting that there is now this website that explores the audiovisual possibilities of digital. If you want, “Tschick” belongs exactly there, on the Internet, because it can also be a classroom if things are going well.
But that's not the only thing that fits. “Tschickucation” treats the story itself across borders, taking a closer look at it as a novel, a play and a film. That's why Herrndorf's dramaturg Robert Koall, who adapted “Tschick” for the stage in 2011, and Fatih Akin, who filmed it in 2016, have their say. But above all, “Tschickucation” is spoken by young people who are the same age or slightly older than Maik, Isa and Tschick. Their names are Clara, Sava, Oda, Nora and Elli, and they ask the questions here. And the adults – Herrndorf's mother Katrin is also there via telephone – answer.
After the publication of “Tschick,” Herrndorf himself received letters from all over the country; 14 and 15-year-olds asked about Maik and Tschick and Isa, about their motives, about Herrndorf’s motives – questions that the terminally ill author of this immortal story can no longer answer could, wanted. In February 2010, a tumor was discovered in his brain. Herrndorf took his own life in August 2013. He wanted to use the time he had left to write. This sad side of the classic “Tschick” is also discussed.
“Even for those who don’t like to read”
To this day, students write to Carola Wimmer if they have questions about the book, “I try to help with discreet tips,” she says. “It's important to me that 'Tschickucation' also reaches out to those who don't really like reading. But the people who are curious are just as important to me; the interviews with the experts are primarily intended for them.” And because 2024 is no longer 2010, the gender relationships in the novel also come into focus, analyzed by the literary scholar Julie Miess.
One could say that “Tschick” is a side chapter of Isa’s story, which Herrndorf continued in the last novel he was still able to work on, “Pictures of Your Great Love,” published posthumously in 2014. Is there also a separate website planned for this? Or the complicated thriller “Sand” from 2011, which poses so many mysteries? “No. “It’s too much work,” says Carola Wimmer. “And with 'Tschick' the benefits are pleasingly concrete.”
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