John's Literature & Art

This is a selection of my literaure and art. I enjoy writing poetry, prose, and plays in both English and German. In 2020, I published my first novel Haufen Philosaufen: ein Liebes Brief an Tübingen, a magical-realist tragicomedy about philosophy, friendship, isolation, and loss. You can also see my oil paintings, collages, and sketches, and listen to one of my plays.

Novel
Haufen Philosaufen: ein Liebesbrief an Tübingen

Deutsch: Bobby Blankenship reist aus den USA nach Deutschland, um in Tübingen Philosophie zu studieren. Um seine hohen Studienschulden zu bezahlen, entwickelt er nebenbei eine KI, die aus unerklärlichen Gründen selbstbewusst wird. Dadurch kehren tote Philosophen wie Hegel, Hölderlin, Schelling und Nietzsche zurück und wollen mit ihm feiern gehen. Bobby ist überzeugt, dass das unmöglich ist und er wahnsinnig geworden sein muss. Die Antwort vermutet er in der Dialektik seiner Albträume.

English: Bobby Blankenship travels from the United States to Germany to study philosophy in Tübingen. To pay off his massive student debt, he develops an AI on the side that, for unexplained reasons, becomes self-aware. As a consequence, long-dead philosophers such as Hegel, Hölderlin, Schelling, and Nietzsche suddenly return and want to go partying and drinking with him. Bobby becomes convinced that this cannot possibly be real and that he must have gone insane. He suspects that the answer lies in the dialectic of his nightmares.

This book is available on Amazon here.