Elke Heidenreich

With her latest book, Heidenreich manages to bring together her many different facets. In MacBeth Schlafers Mörder (MacBeth, Murderer of Sleep), her texts accompany the photographs of Tom Krausz. The two traveled to Scotland to trace the steps of Shakespeare's MacBeth, a play that has been a lifetime fascination for both artists. "I suppose Shakespeare was a poet who knew mankind better than anyone else. There has not been anybody of his stature since," Heidenreich says. "His dreams and his deep knowledge (or wisdom) have always preoccupied me."

In MacBeth Schlafers Mörder, Heidenreich interweaves her texts with the writings of philosophers like Nietzsche and the words of modern personalities including Martin Luther King Jr. and Bob Dylan. The result is a MacBeth who is surprisingly relevant to us today. "Was MacBeth evil by nature or did he become evil because of the things that happened to him?" Heidenreich asks. "Martin Luther King said, 'I have a dream' and they killed him. The world will always try to kill dreamers. The thirst for power found in Shakespeare's MacBeth is still with us today," she says.

Bob Dylan, the messenger

After the events in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, MacBeth Schlafers Mörder took on new relevance for Heidenrech. She had only just returned from the city on Sept. 10. It was this that prompted her to use the words of the Bob Dylan song, "Time out of mind." "When you hear a song that says, 'It's not dark yet, but it's getting there," then I think of America on Sept 11. I think of war and I think of MacBeth. Bob Dylan explains a lot of these feelings."

"For me, Bob Dylan is someone who explains with his songs the life I live today," she says. "I always hope the Nobel Prize Committee will give him the Nobel Prize for literature. His music illustrates what happens in our lives, in politics, and how we change."

Indeed, music of all sorts has been an important part of Heidereich's life. "I listen to everything from Bach to Schubert to all the pop music," she says. "There is no such thing as serious or light music, there is just good or bad music, just like there is good or bad literature."

Alongside music, books remain among Heidenreich's most-treasured companions. "I remember when I first discovered books," she recalls. "It was so wonderful to find out that I was not the only one in the world to be feeling a particular way. Like the pain of that first love … Through books I learned that other people had similar feelings and problems -- and that was wonderful.”

Despite her gregarious nature and the obvious pleasure Heidenreich gets from her many public engagements, she says her inspiration comes mostly when she is alone. "I am by no means an Emily Dickinson -- someone who only sits in her room and writes. Contact with other people is important," she says, "But I like to be alone to observe in a pub or café or shopping. Most of my ideas come from some small unusual everyday encounter that gets taken over by my fantasy."

But there have been some tradeoffs along the road to fame. Heidenreich's search for solitude has led to living separately from her husband Bernd Schroeder. "We are the best of friends, but we cannot live together," she confides. "After 25 years, I said 'Enough!', I need to tell my stories and I don’t mind listening, but I can’t stand being in the middle of my work, with a good idea and having someone come and stop me to ask if I have done the dishes."

But the payback has been worth it. Heidenreich's long and varied career has not gone unnoticed. She has been the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Golden Camera Award, the Whilelmine Lübke Prize and the German Language Society's Award for Language. This last is perhaps the most telling.

Heidenreich's career, with all its sundry paths, has always been about language, about communicating via the written and the spoken word. Like Bob Dylan, whom she so admires, her work speaks to shared experiences and feelings and seeks to shed light on both the personal and the political problems that shape the lives we live.

It's ambitious undertaking and, as she points out, "difficult to characterize." But for all her serious purpose, she delivers it with a simplicity and wit that has spoken to her audience’s hearts for three decades -- thankfully with no end in sight.

Breandáin O'Shea