Ten-year-old Oskar has leukemia and knows that he won't live much longer. The other children at the hospital call him "Egghead". But that's just a nickname and doesn't hurt much. What's worse is that his parents are afraid to talk to him about the truth.
Then Madame Rosa gives him the idea to think about everything,
what moves him - in 13 letters to the good Lord.
Unsentimental and unflinching, Oskar's letters tell of love, pain, joy and loss. In just a few days, he miraculously experiences an entire human life.
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is one of the most widely read and performed French-language authors in the world today. Born in 1960, the lecturer and doctor of philosophy, who trained at the elite Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, first became known as a playwright with his play "The Visitor".
The play becomes a classic in the repertoire of theaters all over the world. Other successful plays soon followed. Celebrated by audiences and critics alike, Schmitt was awarded several "Molière" and the "Grand Prix du Théâtre" of the Académie française for his work. His books have been translated into forty-three languages and his plays are regularly performed in over fifty countries.
Schmitt has also been successful in the cinema and as an opera translator.
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt lives in Brussels.
The novel "Oscar et la dame rose" (Oskar and the lady in pink) was published by Edition Albin Michel. The licensed edition in the translation by Annette and Paul Bäcker is published by Ammann Verlag Zurich. A stage version of "Oskar und die Dame in Rosa" by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt/ German by Annette and Paul Bäcker was published by Theater- Verlag Desch, Berlin, in 2014 and has already been performed.
The aim is to express Oskar's story, the last days up to his death, in a pictorial form without, as the author has written in the novel, lapsing into excessive sentimentality and shock.
The striving for a fulfilled life, the striving for courage to face life, joie de vivre and joy of living, even if you know that you have to die in a few days, combined with a childlike figure, outshines the whole story.
The sensitive social topic of "dying" must be handled with care. The sadness and cheerfulness of the story must be balanced.
The form of writing letters to a non-real being (God) and living through a new decade of life with each new day is highly interesting. Despite the naivety and circumstances of the child, a fulfilled life can thus be lived and perhaps makes the approaching death more bearable from the point of view of the child, who has not yet experienced everything.
Due to the complexity of the role of Oskar, this part should be played by a young character actor.