Martin Walser's Lost Diary

Speaking of things publishers do for writers, Rowohlt has offered a €3000-reward for the finder of 85-year-old Martin Walser's diary. He left it on a train, he told press agency dpa.

He'd been travelling a great deal over the past twelve months, to Chicago, Paris, London, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Brussels, Luxemburg. "The mood in the Hancock Building in Chicago, November, five in the afternoon. Walking all the way across London again, the city where all the world's at home. In Helsinki, my God, the Finnish encounters alone." He wonders whether anyone can make sense or use of his notes. "Of my over 200 pages of novel plans, for example 'The Prisoner' or 'The Staging'? Or of the draft of an essay on 'Love without sex and sex without love'?" (My translation)

The book was bound in red linen and had no name or address written in it. We know more or less what was in there now - so surely those of us with time and imagination to spare could cash in by recreating the lost Walser notes. Here's a sample of his handwriting to get you started.

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Literatur: Martin Walser vermisst sein Reise-Tagebuch - weiter lesen auf FOCUS Online: http://www.focus.de/panorama/boulevard/literatur-martin-walser-vermisst-sein-reise-tagebuch_aid_831745.html