Heike Geissler

Perhaps Heinrich von Kleist’s “Michael Kohlhaas”, who takes bloody revenge after suffering injustice, is the archetype of the “angry citizen”. How would a woman behave? Heike Geißler has confidently overwritten Kleist’s novella.
But where Michael Kohlhaas murders and pillages, the cemetery caretaker “Michaela Kohlhaas” acts primarily with words: with exaggeration, exaggeration, sabotage. Fueled by her experience of arbitrariness and powerlessness, she becomes a rebel, swearing and cursing her way through the country. And has to realize: It is a disadvantage to be a woman. It is a disadvantage to fight back. But in fact she is a great lover who not only wants improvement – she demands reparation. And a completely different set-up for the world.

Heike Geißler is a writer, translator and also works across disciplines in the field of acting and performance in various formations (Sabotique and George Bele). The jury of the Klopstock Prize, which the author received in 2025, praised Geißler as an “outstanding contemporary explorer”.