About the work
Am Samstag gehen die Mädchen in den Wald und jagen Sachen in die Luft is the stage version of Fiona Sironic's debut novel of the same name, published in March 2025 by Ecco, part of the HarperCollins Germany group. Amalia Starikow was the first to adapt it for the theatre, at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, as a joint production of the drama company and the Junges Staatstheater. Her staging premiered on 4 September 2026 at the Wartburg venue in Wiesbaden.
Plot
The story is set in the 2050s, in a world shaped by heat, forest fires and the disappearance of whole species. Fifteen-year-old Era lives with her mother at the edge of the forest and keeps a record of the bird species that die out. In the clearing next door, her classmate Maja and Maja's sister Merle blow up hard drives every Saturday, drives on which their mothers, two momfluencers, made the daughters' childhood public. As the turtle dove goes extinct, Era and Maja fall in love, until a huge forest fire engulfs their world.
Cultural significance
The novel was shortlisted for the German Book Prize in 2025; critics in taz, Die Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung praised its pace and language, while the FAZ missed a sustaining narrative thread. In 2026 it earned Sironic the Lower Rhine Literature Prize. Theater Bielefeld has already scheduled a production of its own for January 2027.