About the work
“Schnee von gestern, Schnee von morgen” (Yesterday's Snow, Tomorrow's Snow) is a stage text by the Austrian writer and Nobel laureate in literature Peter Handke, published by Suhrkamp as a slim volume in January 2025. The publisher describes it as a drama without a change of speaker: a single stream of speech that constantly questions itself. It premiered on 27 July 2026 at the Salzburg Festival in the Salzburger Landestheater, directed by Jossi Wieler with Marina Galic and Jens Harzer sharing the text; the co-production with the Berliner Ensemble opened in Berlin on 29 August 2026.
Plot
A nameless figure walks alone, collecting whatever turns up along the way: two ravens, a half-eaten apple by the roadside, a swarm of flies, rain in the leaves, the shadows of clouds. Between these observations come thoughts of Odysseus and his wanderings, childhood memories, proverbs and word origins. Every statement is immediately doubted and taken back, until the walk turns into a reckoning with old age, farewell and carrying on living despite all despair.
Cultural significance
Critics received the premiere largely with great enthusiasm, singling out the interplay of Galic and Harzer, who made the austere, plotless monologue work on stage. Reviewers read the text as a serene late work in which Handke leaves his early scepticism about language behind and uses wordplay as a way of searching for meaning.