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Rainer Roloff leads a secluded life. If you asked him about his employment history, he would describe himself
as a private scholar. Structure and routine are added to his life thanks to a long-term study on the influence
of sleep on memory, in which he takes part as a test subject. He regularly travels from Cologne to Düsseldorf,
even during a pandemic, to record his thoughts after waking up in the laboratory.
Roloff, one year older than the Federal Republic of Germany, is an ideal and productive subject, with an
elephant’s memory and an awareness of the connection between the collective unconscious and individual
memory. Doctor Meissner, the director of the study, finds »very felicitous« most of what his test subject tells
him, a mixture of historical and personal memories and playfully absurd still-dream logic. But then the
memory of the sleep researcher Dr. Meissner himself gets out of balance...
Once again, Jochen Schimmang proves to be a master of a nonchalant melancholy, a subtle chronicler of
history of which he is the most sympathetic observer.

Author Biography

Jochen Schimmang, born 1948 in Northeim, grew up in Leer, Northern West-Germany.
He studied political sciences and philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin
from 1969 until 1974. Afterwards he worked as a professor at different universities
in Germany and in adult education. Since 1993 he lives in Oldenburg and works
as an author and translator. He has published seven books at Edition Nautilus.