Abracadabra, Plotzenhotz and Dachshund Tail
The unforgettable creatures by Otfried Preußler
The little witch and her raven Abraxas, the Little Water Sprite and his friend, the carp Cyprinus, the Little Ghost, the orphan boy Krabat, the robber Hotzenplotz and the magician Petrosilius Zwackelmann. They are all creatures of the imagination, they all have a place deep in our memory. This is true at least for those millions of people who were lucky enough to grow up with Otfried Preußler's children's books, indeed to make friends with them. Because they were read to them as children, because they read the books themselves again and again and learned how to read through them, because they know the stories from radio plays, from records, from film adaptations. A childhood without Otfried Preußler's inventions? Hardly imaginable.
Born in 1923 in the northern Bohemian town of Reichenberg, now Liberec, as the son of teachers, Otfried Preußler was influenced from an early age by the Bohemian legends and stories told to him by his grandmother. He began writing as a child. After leaving school he became a soldier, was taken prisoner of war in the Soviet Union in 1944 and did not return until five years later. In Upper Bavaria Preußler found his relatives who had been expelled from Reichenberg. He marries, starts his own family, works as a local journalist and eventually becomes a teacher. With Der kleine Wassermann (The Little Water Sprite), the author, now 33 years old, had his first great success in 1956, which was followed by many more. His works are translated into numerous languages and make him one of the best-known and most popular children's authors in the Federal Republic. Otfried Preußler, whose literary estate is in the Berlin State Library, died on 18 February 2013.
Preußler's best-known stories have been adapted for the big screen again in recent years with great success, including The Little Ghost (2013), The Little Witch (2018) and The Robber Hotzenplotz (2022). 20 October 2023 marks the one hundredth anniversary of Preußler's birth. To mark this occasion, we invite children and adults to a re-encounter with three Preußler adaptations from 1974, 1992 and 2008.
For children there is a reduced admission price of €2.50.
