Ulrike Draesner & Rebecca Braun: Channel Swimmer

Time and date

Wednesday 15 July 2026

Time

1:00 pm

Location

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Ulrike Draesner is one Germany’s most acclaimed poets and novelists. Her novel Kanalschwimmer was published in 2019 by Penguin Verlag and then translated into English by Irish-based translator Rebecca Braun and published as Channel Swimmer in August 2025.

Charles, an Oxford scientist on the eve of retirement, decides to counter his wife’s mid-life dream of an expanded marriage with his own: swimming the English Channel – at least once in his life. His Channel crossing turns into an ordeal, a rite of passage, and, ultimately, a tribute to the vagaries of love. At the end of his quest, Charles realizes that he cannot jump over his own shadow. He can only swim across and through it.

Translator Rebecca Braun will join us in person for this event and author Ulrike Draesner will join us remotely from Germany via a live video link-up.

This event supported by the Goethe-Institut Irland

Admission: Free but ticketed

Writers

Ulrike Draesner

Ulrike Draesner was born in 1962 in Munich, Germany. She is a poet, a writer of long and short fiction and cultural essays. She has published six major poetry collections, eight novels, two...

Rebecca Braun

Rebecca Braun is Established Professor of German and World Literature at the University of Galway, Ireland, where she is also currently Executive Dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences & Celtic...

Ulrike Draesner & Rebecca Braun: Channel Swimmer

Time and date

Location

Writers

Ulrike Draesner

Rebecca Braun

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