My work emerges from situations, images, and tensions that cannot be fully explained or resolved.
I’m interested in moments when something begins to tip:
when what is familiar becomes unstable, characters remain contradictory, and situations feel both close and unsettling at the same time.
When writing, I try to create an intense closeness without fully explaining plot, feelings, or situations.
For me, tension arises not only through plot, but through uncertainty, proximity, and the perception of a state.
Many works do not begin with a complete story, but with a scene, an image, or a particular tension.
I’m interested in characters who are not fully legible — not even to me as the author.
People often act contradictorily, interpret their own motives differently, and cannot always be clearly classified morally.
I understand this openness not as an artificial blank space, but as part of realistic perception.
The reader is not only an observer, but part of the experience and interpretation.
Some projects develop over longer periods of time; others remain fragmentary or self-contained.
Form and structure often emerge only during the work.
Alongside literary texts, I also work with images and other fragmentary forms between perception, documentation, and fiction.
Brief & to the point
Name: Günter Schaden
Arbeitet an: literary, analytical and visual projects
Schreibt: novels, short stories, miniatures, visual works