Carson McCullers – the significance of this American writer has been undisputed since the publication of her first novel, “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” It was published in 1940 and made the 23-year-old famous overnight. She was considered a prodigy and compared to the greats: Dostoevsky, Melville, Chekhov, and Faulkner. In addition to her legendary debut novel, she is best known for her novella “The Ballad of the Sad Café.” Her short stories are also central to her work, as McCullers anticipates and repeatedly varies the motifs and themes of her novels in them: loneliness and the desperate search for love, the affirmation of a life wrested from pain. The stories are true literary gems. In them, her inimitable poetry shines with tremendous intensity, as well as a touching existential force and power. Who could be more suitable for a reading than the award-winning actress Bibiana Beglau, whose performances have shaped contemporary theater and film?