Zhärte is a word, a feeling and now a book. I wrote it between 2021 and 2023 with my dear friend and colleague Robin Harder. We both wrote small auto-fictional chapters, scenes and dialogues inspired by growing up in the post-GDR era in the 90s and 2000s. The word ‘zhärte’ is a mixture we created from the German words ‘zart’ (tender) and ‘hart’ (hard). It sums up a feeling or a programme with which we can both identify well, juggling between being too tender for a hard time, space or (mainly male) culture, or vice versa.
Special thanks go to Christoph Link from the bookmaking workshop at the Kunstschule Weißensee in Berlin, who helped us put together this lovely little 1st edition of 16 individual books. Humble thanks also go to Joscha Jelitzki, Birgit Kunz and Tommy Rülke, who did a great job giving feedback and proofreading our first drafts. We would also like to thank Joanna Zvonar and Loreen Knöbel for their kind support during the writing process.
Berlin and Dresden, 2023
Julius Voigt 