Author: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (France 1960)
Genre: Radio play
Production: MDR 2000
Director: Götz Naleppa
Editing: Heide Böwe
Length: 79 min.
Translation: Annette Bäcker

Contributors:
Abel Znorko: Jürgen Hentsch
Erik Larsen: Winfried Glatzeder

Erik Larsen: 'The Enigma Variations, variations on a melody that you can't hear. Elgar, the composer, claimed that it was a very well-known song, but that no one could recognise it. A hidden melody, one suspects it, it sounds and disappears, a melody that one must dream about, an enigma, incomprehensible, just as enigmatic as Helene's smile. Women are like this melody, you dream of them, but you never hear them. Who do you love when you love? You never know.'
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Abel Znorko, a cynical and egocentric misanthrope, has retreated to a Norwegian island for 15 years. His latest book has also been enthusiastically received by critics. It is an unusual work for his previous work: a love novel in correspondence. Surprisingly, he: who normally does not receive visitors: grants an exclusive interview to Erik Larsen, a journalist from a small provincial newspaper. But the reception is anything but friendly. Soon an argument develops between the two, which points to unusual mutual demands. Demands on a woman? A duel between seemingly unequal opponents, with surprising twists and turns and changing advantages, with astonishing revelations and unexpected revelations, as exciting as a thriller, but more sensitive and in the best sense of the word: more profound.

Remarks:
Published in 2000 by DAV >Der Deutsche Audio Verlag< as a CD. Out of print.