Oskar and the lady in pink
Oskar and the Lady in Pink (original title: Oscar et la dame rose ) is a short story by the French writer Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt , which was published in 2002 as the third of four books in the Cycle de l'invisible series. The German first edition was published in 2003 by Ammann Verlag , Zurich.
content
The protagonist is ten-year-old Oskar, who is terminally ill with leukemia. Due to the chemotherapeutic treatment of his disease, Oskar has lost all of his hair and is therefore called Egghead by everyone. He feels that there will be no cure for him and that he only has a short time to live. In contrast to his parents, by whom Oskar feels betrayed and abandoned, Oskar's so-called Lady in Pink speaks to the boy about his illness and death. The pink ladies are women who volunteer to visit sick people. Oskar calls her Rosa.
In order to come to terms with the terrible truth, Rosa asked Oskar to convey his thoughts, feelings, fears and joys to God in letters. He should also imagine that every day still alive means ten years of his life. Although Oskar has difficulties believing in God, he lets himself into the experiment and thus experiences a whole life. In 14 letters to God he tells of his puberty, first love, marriage, quarrels, midlife crisis, old age and finally of the preparation for death. Thus, although he is still ten years old at the time of his death, he feels as if he were 120 years old.
Film and theater
The story was filmed by the author Schmitt himself in 2009, with Michèle Laroque as Lady in Rosa and Max von Sydow as Dr. Dusseldorf . The Theatrium Bremen eV staged the story in 2010 as a puppet theater .
Fabrice Bollon composed an opera of the same name, which had its world premiere on January 5, 2014 at the Freiburg Theater .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oskar and the Lady in Pink, staged by Theatrium Bremen eV (web archive, accessed on February 19, 2018)
- ↑ Georg Rudiger: Days full of imagination. Fabrice Bollon turned Schmitt's “Oscar and the Lady in Pink” into a family opera. In: The Sunday of January 5, 2014, p. 14.