About the work
Blutbuch is the multi-award-winning debut by Kim de l'Horizon, which has been staged in numerous adaptations across the theatres of the German-speaking world. The underlying novel appeared in 2022 and won both the German Book Prize and the Swiss Book Prize that same year. In autofictional form, Kim de l'Horizon – a genderfluid, nonbinary Swiss writer – explores identity, the body and origins. On stage, the polyphonic, linguistically powerful text becomes a many-faceted evening between narration, performance and transformation.
Plot
The nonbinary narrator figure Kim grew up in a Swiss suburb, now lives in Zürich and has broken free of the narrow structures of their background. When the grandmother – the "Großmeer" in Swiss German – develops dementia, Kim is confronted with their own family history. Through writing, the figure dives deep into the past, seeking a way out of the silence of mother and grandmother and wrestling with their own identity and gender. What emerges is at once a revolt against the constraints of social norms – a story of identity and of generations, moving between pain, wit and tenderness.
Cultural significance
Blutbuch is regarded as a flagship of contemporary queer literature and has sparked a broad debate about gender, language and visibility. The novel's success led several theatres across the German-speaking world to create their own stage versions – from Hannover through Bern and Zürich to Vienna. With its radical use of language and its interweaving of the personal and the social, Blutbuch exemplifies a theatre that understands identity as an open, many-voiced process.