Berlin gallery owner Johann König wants to ban the sale of the novel Innerstädtischer Tod (Urban death) of the German author Christoph Peters. He believes that the book, published last September by the German publishing house Luchterhand Literaturverlag, undermines his dignity. On February 6, the Hamburg Court of Appeal received a ban on the part of the Gallery owner’s lawyer. The specialized chamber of the Hamburg Regional Court is expected to rule in the coming days.
In his novel, Christoph Peters paints the portrait of Konrad Raspe, a fictitious Berlin gallery owner, who is accused of serious facts by former collaborators. “I have been in the artistic and literary environment for 35 years and I saw and heard of countless assaults of all kinds in art schools, galleries, literary circles”pleads Christoph Peters.
The Berlin gallery owner Johann König says indeed recognize himself in the character. He himself was accused of sexual assault and abusive behavior by several women in 2022, which remained anonymous. Johann König had partially obtained in this case. The gallery owner is based on other details to support the similarities: his gallery and that of the novel are both located in an old church.
The publishing house refutes the claims of Johann König, who also suffers from a visual handicap. He had published in 2022 a work entitled Blind Gallerist (Blind gallery owner), unlike the fictitious gallery owner which has all its visual capacities. The publisher said that the prohibition request represented a serious damage to artistic freedom, insofar as “A total prohibition of the book is requested, not only the prohibition of passages allegedly violating the law”.
