‘Als das Wort vom Leder zog’ was the second text read by Carmen Gratl at the Second Yenish Cultural Day. The title of the story (literal English translation: ‘As the word drew from the leather’) refers to the German phrase ‘vom Leder ziehen’, which means ‘to lash out at someone’, as well as to books as words bound in leather.
In this short story, the first-person narrator recounts her fascination with the heavy leather-bound books in the library of her Catholic boarding school. By secretly taking the volumes to bed and reading them at night, she succeeds in ‘keeping an open mind’ despite all the pedagogical efforts of the nuns.

Literature

Mehr, Mariella. 2017. Widerworte. Geschichten, Gedichte, Reden, Reportagen. Hrsg. von Christa