My Most Prized Possessions: A reading with Max Kade Writer-in-Residence Christopher Kloeble

On Friday, February 23, the Georgetown German Department’s Max Kade writer-in-residence Christopher Kloeble held a reading of his more recent publications. From his memoir, Home Made in India, Kloeble recounted a childhood spent as an outsider; a Bavarian who could neither speak Bayrisch nor kick a soccer ball. It was in these harrowing yet formative years that Kloeble discovered his penchant for humor, and, by extension, storytelling. He also highlighted an entertaining account of his wife’s upbringing in India – now a second home for Kloeble – which serves to both inform and engage the reader in a personal journey. After ending the first chapter of Home Made in India, Kloeble imparted upon us that he has never considered himself a formal author. As he puts it, “authors string words and sentences together, I feel as if I am strung along by them” (Kloeble, 2/23/18, translated). One finds this hard to believe when listening to a few excerpts from his novel Almost Everything Very Fast. A riveting take on the classic coming-of-age story, Almost Everything takes two outsiders, Albert and his father Fred, on an adventure into the past in an effort to reconstruct Fred’s memory and thereby give Albert, a veritable orphan, some sense of belonging and family. (Evan Thomson, COL’18)