On the occasion of the third death anniversary of noted Swiss German writer Urs Widmer, Pro Helvetia New Delhi in partnership with Readers' Break, invited literature enthusiasts for a participative discussion on Urs Widmer's unique dyad (two-volume set), My Mother's Lover and My Father's Book.

The evening of text and translation attracted an eclectic mix of writers, translators, academics, journalists, publishers, diplomats, students and literature and text enthusiasts.

Be it novels, plays or audio books, Widmer has published countless pieces, making him one of the most-read Swisscontemporary authors.

In 2011, as part of the project Moving Words, sponsored by Pro Helvetia ~ Swiss Arts Council, Widmer's novels were published in English by the Indian-American publishing house Seagull Books as part of the Swiss List.

Urs Widmer's writing remains relevant even in today's context; even though he was born in 1938, he is counted amongst the top contemporary German literature authors.

His biggest hit Top Dogs (1996) deals with a group of fictional corporate managers who are fired and put into a rehabilitation centre, where they are supposed to recover from their recent fall in status.

The play reflects the struggles that are so true in today's globalised and competitive world. My Mother's Lover is based on a real-life affair.

Set against a backdrop of the footloose 1920s, the Depression, the Second World War and its changing fortunes for citizens of a neutral Switzerland and the effects of Italian fascism on a wine-producing family, its deceptively simple narrative explores the destructive nature of yearning for what, or whom, one cannot have, and the cruelty of carelessness.

Musical references and eccentric characters flourish.

The pathos of mother Clara's situation, her love for the renowned conductor Edwin, is portrayed with a lightness of touch and fairytale quality that enchants, but does not detract from the pain of unrequited love nor the absurdities and horrors of war.

Clara, its manager, is still a young lady of means. In Paris, after a concert attended by Ravel, we read of "thirty sleeping musicians, their dreams all in major". Clara's obsession grows even as the maestro marries into wealth: "Every fibre in my mother's body called 'Edwin'. Soon all the birds were singing 'Edwin' … The wind whispered it, the sun burned it into her skin." Translator Donal McLaughlin captures all the charm and sweet sorrow of the original Der Geliebte der Mutter.

While My Father's Book brings the creative recollection further, the son goes on rewriting the father's interrupted journal, discovering his participation in 1920s artistic collectives that resisted the rise of imminent totalitarian forces.

Samuel Buchoul, founder of Readers' Break, the book club of the Institute for the Study of Texts, says, "Urs Widmer's narration style is truly captivating. In just a few lines, he can skim through entire years of character development, or just as well zoom in and inspect the very instants of epiphanies. Far from an easy thing to do, My Mother's Lover and My Father's Book combine the specific difficulties of multiple genres: autobiography/familial memoir, historical novel and socio-cultural commentary. Human relations form the core of the intrigue, with the two pitiless, unrequited love stories of the mother with her lover, and the father with the mother. But Widmer does not fall for any touch of hopelessness or cynicism. His observational attitude remains lighthearted, curious and cheeky."

Rites of passage, unrequited love and Swiss cosmopolitanism… the evening was too short to discuss and 'condense' Urs Widmer, one of the finest Swiss authors of the German language with works so nostalgic, melancholic and bitter-sweet