Marlin Gerken Artist and author from Germany
Marlin Gerken (born 2000), grew up in Germany, Portugal and Austria. He studied cultural anthropology and European ethnography at the Karl-Franzens University in Graz. His literary debut THE WHITE POET, was published in German in 2020. In it, he processes the agitating moments in the life of a student, who is trapped on the edge of madness between youth and adulthood. Despite his passion for art and writing, Marlin Gerke started out studying art history and sociology. He eventually switched to cultural anthropology in order to pursue his thirst for knowledge and social issues. But he used every free moment to further pursue writing, and has fully focused on it since his graduation in the fall of 2025.
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What brought you to your art/ work?
I started to draw and paint as soon as I could hold a pencil. My mother, who got her knowledge of detailed, precise drawing from biology, showed me a lot of this when I was very young. My father then introduced me to colored pencils, acrylics and oil paints. Since I was 17, my style has been moving more and more towards surrealism. I’m fascinated my mythological and fantastical motifs that often deal with how humans are rooted in nature.
Just like art, writing was an early hobby of mine. With seven or eight, I started to write my own fantasy stories. I continued to do so as a teenager, and started to focus my ideas on a particular story, set in a fantasy world, which became more and more important to me over the years. The novel I’m working on now has its origins in these early ideas, which grew into a story over the years, and will find its place in the high fantasy genre. In the meantime, I wrote an experimental short story while I was in high school, which I finished during the pandemic lockdown of 2020. It was published in the same year with the title THE WHITE POET.
How did you get the opportunity to participate in Cornelia’s ‘Artists in Residence’ Program?
The botanist Jakob Nolte asked me if I’d like to take part. We went to school together. We were in the same Latin class and became friends. He became a close friend of my family, and we are in a constant state friendly and enthusiastic exchange. The Artist in Residence project fit perfectly with my artistic and literary interests as well s my love of nature.
How did you like your time at Fraggina? Did you find inspiration there?
That time in Volterra was really special for me. As a young writer, I consider it a great gift to not only be able to meet like-minded people but also talk to Cornelia Funke. With her incredible well of knowledge and experience, she gave me much to consider about writing and broadened my horizon. The exchange with her was very inspiring to me and gave me new ideas on how to delve even deeper into writing.
What did you take home from there?
Many new things to consider as well as a new perspective on my own texts and my writing style. And from my conversations with the other residents, I got exciting insights into their relationship with nature, especially with the forest garden, which I already knew from theories about permaculture.