Romain Butti is an award-winning Luxembourgish author and playwright who writes in German, Luxembourgish, and English. He studied German Linguistics and Literature as well as English and American Studies at the University of Freiburg before living in Berlin and New Zealand for several years.
His work explores themes of isolation, being on the move, alienation, queer identity, and the search for belonging between the anonymity of modern cities and the immensity of raw nature. Today, he lives and works in Luxembourg.
His play Fir wann ech net méi kann was awarded 1st Prize at the 2018 National Literary Competition Luxembourg (Concours littéraire national).
One Year in Berlin · Foreign Rights
Buchmesse: One Year in Berlin · Key InformationEin Jahr in Berlin (One Year in Berlin)
Genre: Literary Novella / Contemporary Fiction
Original Publisher: Kremart Edition (Luxembourg, 2019) | ISBN: 978-99959-39-47-2
Language: German | World English Translation Rights Available
Setting: Berlin & Aotearoa New Zealand
What it is about: A young graduate moves to Berlin to write his aunt's memoirs. Overwhelmed by the city's claustrophobia, he meets Greg and follows him out of the urban jungle into the raw rainforests of New Zealand.
Fir wann ech net méi kann
Genre: Play
Publisher: Kremart Edition (Luxembourg, 2020) | ISBN: 978-2-919781-12-6
Awards: 1st Prize - Concours littéraire national 2018
Statement of the jury:
The jury was captivated by the quality of the literary expression, which evokes a world of poetic imagery and fragile characters. The musicality of the style, the density of the atmosphere, and the precision of the descriptions, both of the characters and of the play’s setting, draw the audience into a world of dark tenderness.
Language: Luxembourgish | World English Translation Rights Available
Stage Production: Recorded theatrical performance at Schungfabrik Cultural Centre in Kayl/Tétange (2021)
What it is about: After a long and arduous journey, a young man returns home. He finds it difficult to reconnect and pick up where he left off. Neither his partner, who has been waiting for him, nor his grandmother, with whom he has always maintained a special bond, provide him with the love and fulfillment he is looking for. He writes down his plans to free himself from his current situation in a notebook, "fir wann ech net méi kann" - for the moment when he is not able to function properly anymore.
Erop / Un air perforé
Genre: Play
Publisher: Luar Editions (Luxembourg, 2023) | ISBN: 978-99987-920-2-9
Language: Luxembourgish | French Title: Un air perforé (Translation: Claire Wagener) | World English Translation Rights Available
Stage Production: Théâtre du Centaure (2022–2023)
What it is about: Erop is an inner journey through love, longing and solitude. A man walks towards a quiet place in nature, a sanctuary where he can pause, listen to himself and reflect on the life he had imagined. Plans have fallen apart, a loved one is far away, and time seems suspended between waiting and hope.
Moving between story and testimony, the monologue opens a space where memories, dreams and frustrations meet. It explores the universal experience of love - its different forms, its silences, its absence, and the strange ways in which loneliness can change how we see ourselves and the world around us. And then, finally, the airport doors open.
Erop means “up”. It evokes those moments when we look up and suddenly see the world - and ourselves - differently.
Praise
Romain Butti has an outstanding ability to create a dense, emotional atmosphere that alternates between passion and distance, between heat and cold, and to transport the reader into a dimension between dream and reality.
- Valerija Berdi (radio 100,7)
Butti plays with the anonymity of the big city, with the feeling of loneliness among millions, with the reconstruction of experiences.
- Isabel Spigarelli (woxx)
A literary marvel.
- Godefroy Gordet (D'Lëtzebuerger Land)