What if you met yourself?
Reading with Johanna Sebauer
On 19 September 2026, Johanna Sebauer joins us at Refugium Lunz for a reading from her new novel Popóm – a clever and delightfully entertaining story about identity, intimacy and the small and large absurdities of our present.
Hendrik Popom is in his late twenties and had imagined his life rather differently. His job at a creative agency leaves him unfulfilled, his relationship has seen better days – and then, one evening, he meets a man and instantly knows: this is me. Only almost twice my age. A relationship full of closeness and resistance develops between Hendrik and his mysterious double Popóm, increasingly challenging everything Hendrik believes he knows about himself and his future.
Johanna Sebauer tells this rather fantastic thought experiment with subtle humour, self-irony and a touch of melancholy. Following her acclaimed debut Nincshof and Das Gurkerl, which won two awards at the 2024 Bachmann Competition, Popóm once again reveals her particular talent for approaching big questions with a wonderfully light touch.
An evening about the self and its possible future, about closeness and change – and the question of whether we would really want to meet the person we are yet to become.
