La Sonrisa

The author and musician Hans Herbst recalls extraordinary episodes of his life, told in 19 short stories. Jörg Fauser appreciated the traveller, jazz musician and writer Hans Herbst as someone who looks at things very closely before writing about them. In "La Sonrisa" Herbst remembers places, people, special encounters. He took time for the people he met, listened and let himself be taken along, always ready for small and big adventures, even if he sometimes got into tricky situations. Each of these stories is a piece of pure life. Whether Hans Herbst played the drums with wonderful musicians in Cuba or ran his wine business in Munich, things always happen to him that can only happen to someone who is ready for them, who lives for them. In "Arrival" he gets into a taxi in New York and starts a conversation with the taxi driver. On the ride, I told him it was my first time in the US and I didn't know the rules, and he said, "The first rule is, watch your money and don't trust anyone you haven't had a couple of drinks with.