When does the event take place?

The event takes place on Monday, November 9, 2026, starting at 6:30 PM.

Where does the lecture take place?

The lecture takes place in the drinking pavilion at Godesberg City Park, Koblenzer Straße 80, 53177 Bonn.

Who is hosting the evening?

The speaker is the ethnolinguist Dr. Margit Gutmann from Heidelberg.

What is the content about?

The focus is on oral Quechua stories from the village of Pomacanchi in the Andes of Peru and their significance for everyday life, community, customs, and cosmology.

Is there an admission fee?

No, admission to the event is free.

Is the event location accessible?

According to the event information, the location is not accessible.

Margit Gutmann Reads in Bonn

Name: Storytelling is Weaving with Words
Start: 2026-11-09T18:30:00+01:00
End: 2026-11-09T20:00:00+01:00
Location: Trinkpavillon im Stadtpark Godesberg

Quechua Stories from the Andes: When Words Become a Cultural Fabric

On Monday, November 9, 2026, the Ibero-Club Bonn invites you to a special literary-anthropological evening in the drinking pavilion at Godesberg City Park. Under the title Storytelling is Weaving with Words, ethnolinguist Dr. Margit Gutmann presents oral Quechua stories from a village in the Andes of Peru.

Oral Literature as a Living Memory

At the center is a storytelling tradition that connects individual experiences, community knowledge, customs, festivals, and rituals. Like multicolored threads in a woven cloth, the stories condense into a cosmology that brings together everyday life and world interpretation.

The event offers an informed approach to oral Quechua literature and shows the literary quality found in inherited voices, images, and narrative patterns. The lecture combines linguistic art with cultural scientific expertise and makes visible how narratives preserve identity and pass on knowledge across generations.

Four Decades of Research in Dialogue with the Storytellers

Dr. Margit Gutmann has been researching oral Quechua storytelling for more than 40 years. In the 1980s, she lived in the village of Pomacanchi for four years and continues to return there regularly. Farmers shared their diverse stories with her in Quechua and allowed her to participate in their everyday lives as well as in their customs, festivals, and rituals.

This long-term field research lends the evening a special authority. The atmosphere of the reading is created not only through presented texts but also through encounters with a linguistic and cultural world, whose storytelling forms are closely intertwined with social life and communal memory.

New Volumes about Pomacanchi

Gutmann also presents the two volumes published in 2026 titled The Qanchi Machu is Still Alive. Oral Quechua Stories from a Village in the Andes of Peru. The publication provides access to life in Pomacanchi and to the messages that continue to resonate in the Quechua stories.

For literature enthusiasts, students, scholars, and all curious listeners, the lecture offers a rare author encounter with an oral literature that communicates between memory, community, and worldview.

A Literary Experience in a Special Atmosphere

The drinking pavilion at Godesberg City Park provides a fitting setting for this evening: a place of exchange where language appears not just as a mere written record but as a living act. The voice, rhythm, and imagination of the stories illustrate how closely literary form and cultural practice are connected.

Admission is free. The event starts at 6:30 PM and is aimed at everyone interested in literature, linguistics, anthropology, indigenous cultures, and international storytelling traditions.

Conclusion: An Encounter with the Power of Storytelling

Storytelling is Weaving with Words promises an evening where oral literature becomes visible as a cultural memory and as an independent linguistic art. Anyone who wishes to experience the Quechua stories from Pomacanchi live will find here an impressive literary experience between research, voice, and communal memory.