When I Say Yes

      Carolin Emcke

      Translated by Tony Crawford

      polity

      Originally published in German as Ja heißt ja und … © S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, 2019

      This English edition © Polity Press, 2020

      Excerpt from: Enis Maci, Eiscafé Europa: Essays. Originally published in German © Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin 2018. Reproduced here with kind permission of Suhrkamp Verlag.

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      ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4089-1

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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      This text is based on a stage performance which premiered at the Schaubühne, Berlin, in December 2018.

      You and I apart are easier to limit.

      – Kate Tempest, ‘Tunnel Vision’

      Speaking about the nature of writing always

      includes speaking about the nature of speaking;

      it is a bridge to the second person, the third, the other.

      – Enis Maci, Eiscafé Europa

Acknowledgements

      I thank everyone, acquaintances and strangers, who have attended my solo evening Ja heißt ja und … at the Schaubühne in Berlin.

      To be able to experience in the theatre what it’s possible to set in motion by speaking about these issues, what is moving, what is disturbing, what is funny – has been both instructive and delightful.

      I thank everyone who has told me afterwards, in letters or in conversation, about their own experiences: that has been a precious gift.

      And it has changed my writing in this book.

I thank not least the whole team at the Schaubühne, whose generosity, loving attention to detail, and ginger tea have made it all possible.