Plain German -- A speech -- Twenty-five years -- Vietnam experiment -- Changing viewpoint -- On a date -- Brecht and others -- The meaning of a new thing -- Vera Inber -- Diary -- aid to work and memory -- Interview with myself -- Truth that can be faced -- Ingeborg Bachmann's prose -- Remembrance and memorial -- Fred Wander: The seventh well -- Faith in the terrestrial -- A visit to Anna Seghers -- The snapdragon -- The reader and the writer -- Meeting Christa Wolf.