Lara Rüter

They grieve and they fart, they laugh and they get annoyed, they want as much pleasure and security as possible, and then they stare off into space again: humans—no, great apes! For years, the poet Lara Rüter worked at a primate research institute. In her text *Affenliebe* ( *Monkey Love*), she writes radically about the monkeys and about herself: about the beginnings of life and about dying, about the urge for freedom and about touch. In everyday life with the apes, the same question keeps coming up: What does it feel like to be human? Weaving together poetic quotations, scientific questions, and moments at the enclosure, this groundbreaking essay shows how writing changes the world.

Lara Rüter was born in Hanover in 1990. She was the poetry prize winner at the 26th Open Mike and received the Caroline Schlegel Essay Award in 2020, as well as scholarships and other awards. Her poetry debut, *amoretten in netzen*, published in 2024 by the Heidelberg-based publisher Das Wunderhorn, received the Kranichsteiner Literature Promotion Prize in 2025.