I welcome whatever happens next

Klaus Reichert is one of the defining voices of German-language essay writing. His book "Wolkendienst: Figuren des Flüchtigen", shortlisted for the German Non-Fiction Prize, brought his work to a wider readership.
With "I welcome whatever happens next", he returns to a subject that has accompanied him for decades: his relationship with John Cage. Emerging from encounters, conversations, and shared work, this is not a conventional artist portrait but an open, fluid constellation of memories and reflections.
Reichert writes in his distinctive: precise, understated, with a fine sensitivity to transitions - between music and language, between listening and thinking. Again and again, the focus is on attention: to sounds, to texts, to another person.
A quiet, thoughtful book for readers who value the essay as a form of thinking - and who find in Reichert's writing that rare combination of clarity and openness that makes his work so distinctive.

Klaus Reichert (b. 1938) is a writer, translator, and literary scholar. He studied philosophy, German literature, and English literature in Marburg, London, Berlin, and Frankfurt am Main, among others with Peter Szondi and Theodor W. Adorno. After working as an editor at Insel and Suhrkamp (1964-1970) and as co-editor of the Frankfurt edition of James Joyce (1969-1981), he served as Professor of English and American literature at Goethe University Frankfurt from 1975 to 2003. From 2002 to 2011, he was President of the German Academy for Language and Literature.
Reichert's work includes essays, translations, and studies on European and American modernism, with a particular focus on the intersections of literature, music, and philosophy. He has published extensively on modern literature, poetics, and aesthetic thought, and has engaged in depth with authors such as James Joyce as well as composers such as John Cage.mes Joyce sowie mit Komponisten wie John Cage.