Daniel Schreiber

At no time have so many people lived alone as now. At the same time, there has never been a more elemental sense of how brutally a self-determined life can turn into loneliness. Is it even possible to be happy alone? And why is living alone perceived as a failure in society? In his lecture, Daniel Schreiber explores the tension between the desire for withdrawal and freedom and that for closeness, love and community. He draws on his own experiences, philosophical and sociological ideas to illuminate the role that friendships play in this model of life. Can they be an answer to the loss of meaning in a crisis-ridden world? A deeply illuminating lecture on the question of how we want to live.

Daniel Schreiber is author of the biography Susan-Sontag. Spirit and Glamour (2007) and the highly acclaimed and widely read essays Sober (2014) and At Home (2017). He studied General and Comparative Literature, Slavic Studies, Theater Studies, and Performance Studies in Berlin and New York. Schreiber has worked as a translator, writer, and art critic for international magazines. He lives in Berlin. Alone (2021) is his fourth book.