"The Emperor of China" is the name of the highly comical text by Tilman Rammstedt about a one-armed grandfather who drives to China so that he can die there. It was not only the audience that was impressed.

 "Uneconomical but highly comical - excellent"

Certainly too much of a good thing at times and it is uneconomical at times" - however, it is still highly comical, excellent", was the verdict of Klaus Nüchtern. "The Emperor of China" is profligate with its punchlines, but in spite of this the story also has a serious background.

"This clock will tick over sooner or later"

"Just by listening", said Alain Claude Sulzer - I saw the problem of this "glamorous" grandfather at a contextual level: "What is missing from the text is his war past". (Sulzer was actually mistaken in this remark, as his colleagues later realised). He also found it "unconvincing" that a man with three wives would never have been out of Germany. "This clock will tick over sooner or later", said Sulzer.

"A brilliant text"

Ijoma Mangold also liked the "brilliant text". He praised the fact that its "thick text dimensions" puts the brakes on towards the end and leaves spaces blank.

Positive verdict with limitations

Burkhard Spinnen was in agreement with the positive verdict, however he gave voice to his concern that all motives, all figures in the book were already known to us: "It is extremely well composed, a virtuoso pot pourri - but what does it have to add to the sum of its parts", enquired Spinnen.

Daniela Strigl contradicted Spinnen at this point: These over the top characters border on the surreal, the demanding Suada is executed with great skill, his Slavic humour possesses something very self-contained.

Andre Heiz said "Humour used as therapy", a permanently babbling hyper-narrative". A text executed excellently in its "musicality".

März criticised the chairman severely 

Ursula März was critical of Spinnen: "Whenever we have a text here with a great deal of effortlessness and a nice turn of phrase, at which we laugh, the moment always comes at which the text becomes suspect. Nobody outside this room understands that", said März.

Spinnen showed her the "yellow card"

"Foul for Ursula März" said Burkhard Spinnen and he showed her "the yellow card". It must be possible to challenge the evidence of one's own reactions. "Sooner or later the text will end up in a precarious situation because more and more things are ranked alongside each other," said the chairperson.

Tilman Rammstedt's text