Thomas Brasch, poet, playwright, filmmaker, and translator, one of the most prominent figures in new German literature, was born in 1945 in Westow/Yorkshire (England) as the son of Jewish emigrants. He lived in East Berlin until the year he left the GDR (1976). In 1977, his most famous book, the short story collection "Before the Fathers Die the Sons," was published. Brasch died in Berlin in 2001. The German turbulence provides an important experiential background for Brasch's work - his discomfort on one side of the border and then the other. However, Thomas Brasch was, even though Germany served as a kind of sounding board for his work, essentially a cosmopolitan - a citizen of the world. In search of new artistic concepts, he countered the existing with something of his own. He created counter-images. The interviews that began with Brasch's arrival in the West (1976) are noteworthy.