Radio Drama · 2026-07-04
The Southern Thruway: Cortázar's Haunting Story on Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk has turned Julio Cortázar's 1966 short story "The Southern Thruway" ("La autopista del sur") into a radio drama about strangers trapped for months in a traffic jam on a Parisian highway on a scorching August Sunday.
In the Argentine writer's story, a crowd of weekend travelers heading home gets stuck in a highway traffic jam between Fontainebleau and Paris in searing heat — a jam that, instead of clearing quickly, drags on for months, during which the stranded drivers form small communities, rules, and even emotional bonds with one another. The story isn't based on a real traffic jam — it's an allegorical invention of Cortázar's imagination — and it later inspired French director Jean-Luc Godard's film Weekend (1967).
The production was first made available digitally, in Deutschlandfunk's Mediathek, on 26 June 2026; in traditional radio broadcast, it airs on Deutschlandfunk Kultur on 28 June at 18:30 and on Deutschlandfunk itself on 7 July at 20:05.
Cast & Crew
- Translator Rudolf Wittkopf
- Director Jakob Gühring
- Cast Ursina Lardi
- Music Max Andrzejewski, Johannes Schleiermacher
Sources: ARD Sounds · hoerspielundfeature.de
This article was partly machine-composed.