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A Literary Smoke Screen

DW staff (sp)March 19, 2004

A literary-stimulating diversion has arrived for German smokers weary of staring at death warnings on their cigarette packs -a thin cardboard jacket inscribed with a brief story. Hail the advent of the "cigarette novel."

https://p.dw.com/p/4oXp
"She reclined demurely and asked the handsome stranger, 'Got a light, love?'"Image: BilderBox

So you've bought your pack of Marlboro at the corner shop, lit up, and you're now waiting for the bus. It's late, you're impatient and bored. You can't read the paper tucked under your arm because your hands are full. And you're read the billboards around a million times. Your eyes invariably stray to the "SMOKING LEADS TO IMPOTENCE" warning blazing on your Marlboro pack. You hastily avert them and instead take another drag.

Zigaretten mit Aufkleber
Cigarette warnings in GermanyImage: AP

The next time you're in a situation like that, you might consider shelling out an extra €2 and buying a thin cardboard cover inscribed with, yes, a whole story! Ten lines on the front and another ten on the back. Slip that on your pack and voila, there's entertainment for you. You can immerse yourself in a quick good fictitious read by popular German writers like Russian-born Wladimir Kaminer and Doris Dörrie as you take a leisurely smoke and wait for the tube.

The brainchild of Munich-based publishing house Blumenbar, the so-called "cigarette novel" introduced this month promises to deal with the inexhaustible grand themes of literature like love and death. For instance famous German columnist and author Maxim Biller's episode called "Melody" opens with the dramatically sweeping statement, "When Thomas and Melody fell in love, Eva had been dead for just two months."

The publishers are talking of breaking ground with a whole new untapped literary genre and are hoping that the compact pocket-sized stories might eventually becoming collectors' items and take place of pride on bookshelves.

But for most German smokers, the idea is more likely to come in handy for camouflaging those nasty "SMOKERS DIE EARLIER" and "SMOKING CAUSES FATAL LUNG CANCER" signs issued by the health ministry.