Katja Kraus

Freundschaft: Geschichten von Nähe und Distanz

Lesung und Gespräch

Friendship: Stories of Intimacy and Distance

Over the course of a year starting in the summer of 2013, Katja Kraus interviewed 21 public figures from politics and economics, sports and the arts. The subject of the interviews was friendship, whether prominent ones like that between Egon Bahr and Willy Brandt or the personal relationships between the interview subjects and their friends. The interviews revealed not only very different concepts of intimacy. Kraus herself came so close to her subjects that some were occasionally astonished by their own frankness. Speaking about friendship, it turns out, requires a high degree of trust, even a certain form of friendship. Katja Kraus will begin by reading a short passage from her book and continue with some further thoughts about the forms and conditions of friendship—and the situation of those who ask others about their intimate lives.

Katja Kraus was a professional soccer player from 1986 to 1998. As goalkeeper for FSV Frankfurt, she became a three-time national champion and four-time German Cup winner. She later joined the German national team, which went on to win the 1995 European championship, finish second in the FIFA World Cup, and compete in the 1996 Olympic Games. She has served on the executive board of Hamburger SV and since 2013 has been the business manager of the advertising agency Jung von Matt/SPORTS. After her career as an athlete, she studied German literature and political science at the University of Frankfurt. Her books include Macht: Geschichten von Erfolg und Scheitern (2013), and Freundschaft: Geschichten von Nähe und Distanz (2015).