Olivia Laing »Buch der Träume«

Two men meet in Venice. One is a young English artist who has fled London penniless. The other is the visionary Danilo Donati, costume and set designer for Pasolini and Fellini, the magician of Italian cinema. The two are immediately drawn to one another; they travel to Rome, lose themselves in the intoxicating dream world of Cinecittà and immerse themselves in a realm of light-heartedness and fantasy. Yet in Italy’s politically tense ‘Years of Lead’ (anni di piombo), their excessive lifestyles, work and love lead them into an increasingly menacing labyrinth, where shadowy forces operate with terrifying brutality.

Set against the seductive backdrop of Italy, »Book of Dreams« is a hypnotic intoxication, a tender seduction and a compellingly beautiful novel about power and illusion, loneliness and uncompromising desire.

Olivia Laing talks to Kathleen Reinhardt, director of the Georg Kolbe Museum and curator of the German Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, about Venice as a place of longing, ‘le belli arti’ and her latest novel. The German passages are read by the actress Veronika Bachfischer.

An event in collaboration with the Georg Kolbe Museum, which is showing the group exhibition ‘everybody’ – inspired by Olivia Laing’s book »Everybody – A Book about Freedom« – until 29 November 2026. For more information on the exhibition, visit: https://georg-kolbe-museum.de/programm/ausstellungen/everybody/.