The fourth volume of Klaus Merz's collected works brings together a representative selection of his essays, columns, speeches, and insights that have been published in newspapers and magazines since the early 1970s. With the exception of the "Eighteen Encounters" in the volume The Tournament of the Pencil Knights (2003), these texts are presented in book form for the first time. Many of the speeches appear here in print for the very first time. The four sections therefore provide a deep insight into the expanded oeuvre of Klaus Merz. Even when the writer seemingly engages in journalistic forms, he remains true to his literary diction. Nevertheless, Merz also reveals himself in the feuilletons as an author who engages with current events and approaches the people and occurrences around him not only poetically but always politically and with wit.