We have news!

Beginning this fall, “Reading List Berlin” is going to become more than a newsletter. We’ll be hosting a talk series at Volksbühne starting in November, and we’ll be releasing a podcast. Each episode invites a guest to bring a short reading list that helps us to better understand one of their works. Which novels, poems, research materials or odd archival findings have inspired their writing of this book?

We’re thrilled that Katie Kitamura has agreed to be our first guest.

November 18

Reading List Berlin presents: Katie Kitamura

Reading List Berlin is a new literary talk format at Volksbühne. Hosts Theresia Enzensberger and Patrik Gräb are exploring a different way to talk about literature and current debate: by looking at the sources.

For the premiere, the hosts will talk to acclaimed writer Katie Kitamura about what was on her Reading List while working on her most recent novel Audition. An unnerving and enigmatic work, Audition opens with the unnamed narrator – a successful actress in New York – meeting Xavier, who claims to be her son. As Xavier is inserting himself into the life of the narrator and her husband Thomas, the constructed reality of the novel is shifting like a play that is being re-written and performed/auditioned in real time.

Booker and Pulitzer Prize nominated author Kitamura will offer a new look at this masterfully composed story by discussing the texts, movies and accidental discoveries that accompanied the writing process.

In cooperation with the American Academy in Berlin.

(EN)

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8 pm | Roter Salon, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstr. 227

And with that, we’re going on our yearly summer break. But as always, we’re leaving you with some recommendations for your next beach read:

Carlos Barragán - The Yahoo Boys

When Carlos Barragán’s mother falls victim to a romance fraud by a scammer in Nigeria, the author goes on a journey to Lagos and encounters Biggy, Chibuike, Azeez – “Yahoo Boys” that are trying to make ends meet by chatting endless hours with distant Westerners. It’s non-fiction, but it has all the qualities of a good novel. (EN/DE)

Franziska Gänsler - Orca

A breathless thriller about eco-terrorism, this book is at the same time an astute exploration of the psychology of friendship. Cora, Olympia and Ariel are teenage girls that grow up in an impossible world, and Gänsler is masterful at making it feel claustrophobic and expansive at the same time. (DE)

Judith Schalansky - Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel

When faced with the thankless task of writing about her own writing (what in Germany is known as a “Poetikvorlesung”), Schalansky decided to something beautiful and unexpected: she wrote about materials. Marble, mercury and fog are being examined from the perspective of a brilliant writer, a dedicated nerd, an original polymath. (DE)

Anna de Marcken - It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over

Last week I (Patrik) started reading It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by the author and artist Anna de Marcken. It is a zombie novel but not in the way you would think. For starters, it is narrated by a zombie. She used to be human, but now she is dead, or undead, and has forgotten her name. She lives together with other zombies in a seedy hotel and so far, not much has happened. They talk (they can talk amongst each other), they have a little ritual to mark the loss of various body parts, which is a regular part of the zombie experience unfortunately. The book is beautifully written: an eerie but immediately relatable meditation on mortality, loss and yearning for memories and sensations that you can’t quite recall. (EN/DE)

Clemens J. Setz - Rainer Maria Rilke

It made so much sense to me that Clemens J. Setz translated It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over into German for Suhrkamp. Setz shares with Anna de Marcken a sensibility for the absurdities of our finite, physical existence. This also comes through in a book my mother gave me: Setz short book for Reclam’s Hundert Seiten series on Rainer Maria Rilke. It is a very idiosyncratic book, but it did a fascinatingly good job at getting me hooked on Rilke. I was always a bit suspicious of the uber-poet and what I perceived as his male and slightly embarrassing pathos. Appropriate for a Reclam book, Setz schooled me. Setz took me to Paris with Rilke, to the Hades with Orpheus (another afterlife hotel), and alerted me to the omnipresence of hands in Rilke’s work; hands with a personality, a soul, of their own. For a book of hundred pages, this contains so much Rilke and so much Setz as well - you’d be stupid to pass on this deal. (DE)

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July 15

The Middle East in an Age of War and Climate Breakdown
with Adam Hanieh

The Middle East once again stands at the centre of global war and a widening economic crisis. This lecture places the current moment in the longer history of fossil capitalism and the rise of American power from the mid-twentieth century onward. It examines especially the rise of the Gulf states and their crucial place in sharpening geopolitical rivalries as well as the relative decline of US hegemony. It concludes by reflecting on what these developments might mean for global progressive movements in an age of war and climate breakdown.

Adam Hanieh is a professor in the Department of Development Studies and director of the Middle East Institute at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of several books on issues of political economy and the Middle East, including Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of the World Market (Verso Books 2024), which was co-winner of the 2025 Best Book by an International Scholar, Global and Transnational Section of the American Sociological Association.

The talk will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Nick Wilcke.

Free admission.

(EN)

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7 pm | KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststr. 69

July 15

Res Sigusch: “Unbegründete Ängste”

Reading and talk. Moderated by Georgina Fakunmoju.

The thirty-year-old Christian Lotz lives a queer single life in a small town in Saxony. Every Sunday he meets his parents for a champagne breakfast, and during the week he works at a gym. Muscular and handsome – his mother raves that he looks like David Beckham in the early 2000s – he is plagued by inner insecurity and worries about basically everything: How does he come across to others? Why can’t he find the right man? What does the future hold in times of climate change, right-wing extremism, and pandemics? And isn’t he perhaps already terminally ill, as his daily internet searches would have him believe? His answer is always the worst-case scenario. Thus, an existential fear grows within Christian that soon knows no cause. Only when his situation becomes impossible to ignore does he open up to those around him – and learns: Misery loves company. And sometimes all it takes is a spark of courage.

(DE)

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7 pm | Bezirkszentralbibliothek Pablo Neruda, Frankfurter Allee 14 A

Note: We falsely announced this event in our June newsletter. This time it’s really happening!

July 18

Olga Hohmann: The Bird Feeder, with Naomi Abukha, Henriette Kupke & Florian Hein

In The Bird Feeder, the focus is on our relationship with animals in public urban space. Berlin’s residents affectionately call their city pigeons the “rats of the sky” – perhaps the animal people encounter most often, aside from flies or clothes moths: alive, injured, or dead. We know them in almost every possible state: alone or in groups, cooing outside windows, gathered beneath U-Bahn bridges, flying low overhead, or appearing unexpectedly on our doorsteps. Yet these “rats of the sky” are only one of many non-human creatures with whom we live in a quiet symbiosis every day, alongside rats, foxes, squirrels, the swans on the Landwehr Canal, and the hares in the Hansaviertel. Sometimes it is not entirely clear who is host and who is parasite.

Olga Hohmann works with a vocal ensemble and is costumed by Eva Noeske. She writes essays, prose miniatures and meandering texts intended to be read aloud. In an almost musical form, she combines more or less fictional narratives with found material, which coalesce into a rhythmic murmur. Slogans, aphorisms and flashes of insight are treated as equal in the hierarchy.

(DE)

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2 pm | Tropez, Sommerbad Humboldthain, Wiesenstraße 1

July 19

Research Exchange with the Pomo Weavers Society & the Floating University Berlin

You are warmly invited to a research-in-progress exchange around topics of fire ecologies, tending the wild, ancestral knowledges of artmaking and weaving, decolonial restitutions, transhistorical memory, more-than-human kin, and restorative relations to land.

“Now / make room in the mouth / for grassesgrassesgrasses” quotes Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (2017). Her poem stretches towards living relatives: plants that sit at the very center of many Native American lifeworlds—between material and spoken languages. Imagine these grassesgrassesgrasses woven into baskets as a living archive of culture and ecology, taking on forms of delicacy, strength, utility and ornament. These vessels hold nourishment, seeds, medicine and the stories of ecosystems flourishing under the co-cultivations among humans, animals and elements. Every weaver is also a wildland cultivator. Baskets are an art form connected to the living weaver and their environment.

Celebrated tribal culture keepers Sherrie Smith-Ferri and Silver Galleto from Indigenous Pomo Country in California will share stories and creative practices of weaving upon the occasion of the first reunion in over 120 years between Pomo people and an important collection of baskets and regalia held by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. They will share insights from their research visit in dialogue with artists Caitlin Berrigan and Garance Maurer, and with the reeds around the reservoir of Floating University.

You will also be invited to take part in the conversation to share about your own work and research, as we are actively seeking connections for institutional and individual collaborations to move this international project forward and re-establish continuities across historical gaps and living, contemporary art practices.

Floating will propose some refreshments and food. Accessible and open to all bodies. Event in English.

Please RSVP with your interest and access needs by 16 July 2026.

(EN)

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4-8 pm | Floating University, Lilienthalstr. 32

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July 6 - August 23

Ausstellung PRÉSENT  (Geschenk und Gegenwart) im TROPEZ

With the summer exhibition PRÉSENT (gift and present), TROPEZ celebrates the here and now. Ten artists of the post-90s generation present new artworks created especially for the outdoor pool and its audience. The sculptures and (video) installations are a tribute to the past nine summers: the artists quote their personal highlights from the history of TROPEZ.

Selin Acarbaş, François Briand, DaddyBears, Ileana Farabani, Anna-Lena Krause, Neda Naujokaitė, Thuy Tien Nguyen, Malin Kuht, Virginie Sistek and Nomin Zezegmaa address structural problems of our time — while at the same time devising creative counterproposals to reality.

As part of the performance series for PRÉSENT, the performing artists Olga Hohmann, Thuy Tien Nguyen, Belle Santos, and Alex Tatarsky shake up the lounging areas with their performances and celebrate the vibrant community that comes together at the outdoor swimming pool.

The curators Maria Buzhor, Creamcake, Moshtari Hilal, and Anna-Lena Panter / transmediale invite further young contemporary voices from literature (among them Elona Beqiraj, Meret Weber and Lara Rüter) and music theatre, electronic music, and technology to engage in exchange with the swimming pool audience.

(MULT)

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all summer | Sommerbad Humboldthain, Wiesenstraße 1

July 8

Die Zukunft der Gesamtausgabe. Publizieren in Zeiten von „KI“

As new media and technologies continue to develop, so too do the practices of reading, publishing, and archiving. Together with Matthes & Seitz publisher Andreas Rötzer and media scholar Christoph Engemann, Wolfgang Hottner of the University of Bergen will discuss how the traditional format of the collected works is changing in the age of large language models. The discussion is prompted by a project currently being developed by Matthes & Seitz Berlin, which aims to make the collected works of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud accessible through an AI chatbot.

How can the format of the collected works be reinterpreted today? What philological challenges does it present? What broader perspectives does it open up for the presentation of literary estates? And what critical questions need to be asked in this context?

(DE)

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6 pm | Raum JK 32/202 (Rost- und Silberlaube) FU Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45

July 8

Meisterwerke der NS-Satire und was sie uns lehren

Wolfgang M. Schmitt in conversation with Jan Drees and Maximilian Mengeringhaus.

Where political reality descends into grotesque cruelty and right-wing actors invoke fate and profundity, laughter becomes an act of resistance. Literary satire flourishes whenever times are dark. It is therefore no surprise that, during the National Socialist era, many writers turned to satire as a means of analysing the political situation. Some of these works are now largely forgotten, such as Otto M. Knab’s Kleinstadt unterm Hakenkreuz (1934) or even Walter Mehring’s Die Nacht des Tyrannen (1937). Others, however, continue to captivate readers, are of outstanding literary quality, and remain available in new editions.

The conversation will focus on Klaus Mann’s Mephisto. Roman einer Karriere (1936), Bertolt Brecht’s play Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (1941), and the satirical work Dritte Walpurgisnacht (1933) by Karl Kraus. Looking not only to the past but also to the present, the discussion will ask: What can literary satire achieve in the face of the pervasive shift to the right? Is our laughter ultimately fatalistic—or revolutionary?

Part of Lesefestival antifaschistische Literatur.

(DE)

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125

July 9

»Aber versuchen wir einen anderen Anfang« Fragmente für eine antifaschistische Praxis

In this performative lecture, Fabian Saul and Tanasgol Sabbagh attempt to compose a present from texts of resistance. Its point of departure is Die Ästhetik des Widerstands by Peter Weiss, yet the material branches out across times, places, and voices. Rather than following a linear argument, the lecture is structured according to the logic of a musical score: voices enter, overlap, break off, and return. Quotations, poems, political texts, and fragments are not simply read but arranged, displaced, and heard against one another. Meaning emerges through rhythm, montage, and repetition.

From this compositional movement unfolds a dialogue about action: What does antifascist resistance mean today? How can historical material be transformed into a practice for the present without closing it off or neutralising it? What is the role—and the responsibility—of those who write? The envisioned “handbook” remains fragmentary: less a finished text than an open score.

Part of Lesefestival antifaschistische Literatur.

(DE)

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125

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July 1

Studio LCB: Lukas Bärfuss - Königin der Nacht

At the beginning of the 1970s, when many authors, especially men, were still reckoning with their fathers' generation, Peter Handke published “Wunschloses Unglück”, a book about the life and death of his mother that went on to become a classic. Now the Büchner Prize winner Lukas Bärfuss has also published a book about his mother, “Königin der Nacht”. She died in poverty, and after her death he finds himself facing the meager remnants of her possessions, just as he once stood before the sparse belongings of his father. “Vaters Kiste” is the title of that essay; together with the novel “Koala”, about his brother's suicide, it forms a trilogy telling a tragic family tale. Together with the author, Marlen Hobrack and Andrea Roedig trace this story. Moderated by Tobias Lehmkuhl.

(DE)

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

July 2

Book launch: Malwine Stauss & Ebow

She Said is delighted to celebrate the launch of “Vogel und Meer”, a publication featuring watercolors by the artist Malwine Stauss, created in response to a song by the rapper Ebow. Produced in collaboration with Colorama, the book moves fluidly between drawing and language, entering into dialogue with the poetic imagery of Ebow’s work. The evening will include a film screening, a live musical performance by Ebow, and a conversation moderated by Johanna Maierski (Colorama Press).

Tickets are available online or in the bookshop. If a ticket is currently beyond your means, you are warmly invited to email narumi@shesaid.de to register for a solidarity ticket.

(DE)

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8 pm | She Said, Kottbusser Damm 79

July 3

Rooms of Pain

What happens when experiences of pain are downplayed and made invisible?

This event brings together performance, readings, and visual art, creating a space for critique of gender medicine and opening up new perspectives on health, pain, and structural inequality.

The artists Alice Muitoevoli Rugai, Anna Frehiwot Maconi, Elena Agebo, Jana Petersen, Susana Vásquez Torres and Henok Getachew Woldegebreal approach topics such as chronic illnesses, medical gaslighting, and the transformative power of pain from personal and artistic perspectives.

(DE)

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7 pm | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21

July 5

Sommerfest: Haus am Waldsee

Marius Goldhorn reads from his latest novel “Die Prozesse”, there are going to be performances by Hannah Rettl and Sophie Becker, and a family flower workshop led by Luise Bichler. Seán Being concludes the day with a musical performance.

You can find the program and accessibility information here.

(DE/EN)

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from 1 pm | Haus am Waldsee, Argentinische Allee 30

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Zabriskie is one of our favorite book stores: focusing on ecology, art, political theory, sound and countercultures, they regularly host events – many of which have been featured in this newsletter. Per their own instagram, the ever present austerity measures have “started to make waves” in their bookshop. Please support them by browsing in person, buying vouchers and merch, recommending them to friends and ordering books online.

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24/7 | Zabriskie Bookstore, Reichenbergerstr. 150

June 25

Ingeborg Bachmann – Jemand, der ich einmal war

Film premiere and discussion with director Regina Schilling.

Few voices in German-language literature have been as celebrated, debated, and controversial as that of Ingeborg Bachmann. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, Regina Schilling, director of the new film Ingeborg Bachmann – Jemand, der ich einmal war, approaches this fascinating and complex figure through an original artistic lens. The film is a portrait of an uncompromising pioneer whose lifelong struggle for female self-determination and against enforced silence has lost none of its urgency.

In the film, actress Sandra Hüller approaches Ingeborg Bachmann’s life through an imagined day, lending her words a compelling presence. Through an artfully woven tapestry of improvised scenes, archival treasures, interviews, and Bachmann’s own writings, the film traces the key stages of the author’s life—from her childhood during the war in Carinthia and her rise to prominence as a star of Gruppe 47 to her final days in Rome. The journey is shaped by her complex relationships with Paul Celan, Hans Werner Henze, and Max Frisch, as well as by her relentless struggle to forge a distinctive, radical language between public acclaim and existential crisis.

The 6 pm event featuring director Regina Schilling, actress Sandra Hüller, and writer Helene Hegemann is sold out.

(DE)

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9 pm | Kino International, Karl-Marx-Allee 33

June 25

OPEN AIR AM WANNSEE mit Katja Petrowskaja, Irina Bondas, Serhij Zhadan, Claudia Dathe

On this evening, Katja Petrowskaja and Serhij Zhadan will introduce writers of Ukrainian modernism on the shores of the Wannsee.

Among them are Valerian Pidmohylny, author of the first Ukrainian urban novel, and the futurist Mykhail Semenko, whose manifestos, language experiments, and visual poetry bridge Ukrainian Baroque traditions and the 1920s, laying the foundations for new modern literary forms in Ukrainian literature.

Petrowskaja and Zhadan will join translators Claudia Dathe and Irina Bondas in a conversation about the translation and mediation of authors who remain largely unknown in Germany but are regarded as classics in Ukraine.

(DE)

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

June 25-27

Public Bachmann

The 50th Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur will take place, as always, in Klagenfurt, Austria. Not everyone can make the trip to Lake Wörthersee. So from Thursday, 25 June onwards, Slavica Klimkowsky and Thomas Beckmann are hosting public screenings of all readings in Berlin at Létteretage.

The fourteen nominated authors are Gesche Heumann, Ozan Zakariya Keskinkilic, Seraina Kobler, Wolfgang Popp, Kurt Prödel, Jovana Reisinger, Caroline Rosales, Slata Roschal, Lena Schätte, Magdalena Schrefel, Fiona Sironic, Christoph Szalay, Kinga Toth, Derya Uzun.

(DE)

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June 25 - 27 | silent green Kulturquartier, Gerichtstraße 35

June 26-28

MISS READ: The Berlin Art Book Fair & Festival 2026

Art book fair MISS READ moves to silent green Kulturquartier, this year with a focus on Bibliodiversity. In its eighteenth year, MISS READ continues to offer a vibrant platform for critical discourse, experimental publishing, and independent artistic practices. 235 exhibitors from 46 countries form one of the most international gatherings for independent publishing worldwide.

Coined in analogy to biodiversity, bibliodiversity describes the plurality of voices, forms, and perspectives in publishing — a counterweight to market concentration and cultural homogenisation. Publishing after the so-called paperless revolution never fully dematerialized, yet transformed the conditions of print, distribution, and social ecosystems.

The three-day public program brings together lectures, panel discussions, performances, and book launches exploring the boundaries of contemporary publishing.

(MULT)

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June 26 - 28 | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21

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June 15

Res Sigusch: “Unbegründete Ängste”

Reading and talk. Moderated by Georgina Fakunmoju.

The thirty-year-old Christian Lotz lives a queer single life in a small town in Saxony. Every Sunday he meets his parents for a champagne breakfast, and during the week he works at a gym. Muscular and handsome – his mother raves that he looks like David Beckham in the early 2000s – he is plagued by inner insecurity and worries about basically everything: How does he come across to others? Why can’t he find the right man? What does the future hold in times of climate change, right-wing extremism, and pandemics? And isn’t he perhaps already terminally ill, as his daily internet searches would have him believe? His answer is always the worst-case scenario. Thus, an existential fear grows within Christian that soon knows no cause. Only when his situation becomes impossible to ignore does he open up to those around him – and learns: Misery loves company. And sometimes all it takes is a spark of courage.

(DE)

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7 pm | Bezirkszentralbibliothek Pablo Neruda, Frankfurter Allee 14 A

June 17

Dirty Pages - A Cookbook Club #2
Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution by Roxana Jullapat

Every two months, the book club picks a cookbook, cooks from it, and gathers to share what they’ve made. Read the book, try out a few recipes (three or more if you can), then bring a dish to their potluck-style meeting.

At its heart, cooking is about more than food or recipes; it’s about home, nourishment, and bringing people together. The book club eats, swaps notes on what worked (and what didn’t), and talks about everything else that matters.

For the second session, they will dive into Roxana Jullapat’s Mother Grains – Recipes for the Grain Revolution. The book covers eight grains: barley, buckwheat, corn, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, and wheat. Jullapat frames their flavors and textures alongside their historic lineages and the farming communities around the world that have kept them alive.

(EN/DE/ES)

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6.30 pm | Zabriskie Bookstore, Reichenbergerstr. 150

June 17

Goethes Diwan: Nino Haratischwili

With “Das mangelnde Licht”, Nino Haratischwili has created a novel whose impact extends far beyond the German speaking world. Numerous translations attest to the international attention the novel has garnered – and to the importance of supporting translation for cultural exchange across borders. How does a story change when it is recreated in another language? What specific challenges did the translators face? And what does a book’s global resonance reveal about the themes that unite us?

To mark the 75th anniversary of the Goethe-Institut, author Nino Haratischwili meets with her translators Barbara Fontaine and Maia Panjikidze, who have rendered the novel into French and Georgian. Moderated by Anne-Dore Krohn.

(DE)

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

June 18

Dinosaurier der Diaspora

In 1978 and 1979, the world’s attention was focused on Iran – on the revolution that toppled the Shah and on the new Islamic Republic, which very early on began imprisoning, torturing, and killing many members of the opposition, including numerous returnees who had initially supported the revolution from abroad. Survivors left the country (once again) and scattered into a widely dispersed and politically diverse diaspora.

Currently, the war dominates the news from Iran. The protests, which were brutally suppressed in December 2025 and January 2026, have fallen out of the spotlight. For a brief moment, the end of the tyranny seemed near, but hopes both at home and in the diaspora were dashed. Solidarity within the diaspora with the uprisings in Iran has a long history and draws attention to the Iranian opposition figures whom their political forebears once called dinosaurs and who, in the eyes of their children, have themselves become dinosaurs.

In her essay “Dinosaur Child”, Maryam Aras addresses this generation and gives them a voice, embarking on a search for clues based on her father’s political biography while reflecting on her childhood in the Iranian diaspora in Cologne. In conversation with Nacim Ghanbari and Elahe Haschemi Yekani this evening, she reflects on what a political movement in the diaspora can be and what role media perceptions of Iran have played and continue to play in history. What constitutes the intellectual legacy of the exiled “dinosaurs”? Where do their children see themselves, and how should we deal with the historical traces of a diverse diaspora?

(DE)

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7.30 pm | diffrakt, Crellestr. 22

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June 6

Sebald Remembering

“I have always resisted the power of time out of some internal compulsion which I myself have never understood, cutting myself off from so-called current events in the hope, as I now think, said Austerlitz, that time will not pass away, has not passed away, that I can turn back after it, and when I arrive I shall find everything as it once was, or more precisely shall find that all moments of time have coexisted simultaneously.” So wrote W.G. Sebald in his final novel Austerlitz (2001), published only a few months before his death in a car accident.

At Sebald Remembering, writers Marcel Krueger, Paul Scraton, and Madeleine Watts will discuss Sebald’s work and his legacy in a conversation moderated by Sanders Isaac Bernstein.

After a short break, Berlin writers will be invited to read their own work inspired by Sebald and the theme of crisis.

(EN/MULT)

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8 pm | Lettrétage, Veteranenstraße 21

June 9

»Wenn ich deine Worte lese, finde ich den Weg zurück nach Hause«
Briefe von Autor:innen im Exil

A reading and book launch party with Francesca Melandri and Lina Atfah and recorded contributions by Shamsia and Nino Haratischwili. Moderated by Ulrike Almut Sandig. Music by DJ Masta Sai.

“Write to me, Nino, because every time I read your words, I find my way back home.” With these words, the Syrian poet Lina Atfah addresses Nino Haratischwili, opening an intimate space for exchange about childhood and war, memory and lost homelands. In the collected correspondence from nearly ten years of Weiter Schreiben, we witness how deep connections develop between writers across personal and political boundaries. These letters are more than memories—they are literary testimonies of their time, weaving personal destinies together with world events. And they show that, if we choose to, we can connect with one another.

Weiter Schreiben is a programme for writers from war and crisis regions that has since 2017 translated, illustrated, and published poetry and prose—primarily from Arabic and Persian. It connects writers in exile with renowned German-speaking authors through tandem partnerships and organises joint readings.

(DE/MULT)

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125

June 10

“Nice Rooms with Beautiful Views”: Airbnb Images from Settlements in the Occupied West Bank

Berlin book launch of “Nice Rooms with Beautiful Views” by Federico Vespignani, which compiles images from hundreds of Airbnb listings in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, examining how occupation extends into the digital realm.

The book opens with an essay by Ido Nahari and Ralph Tharayil about the architecture of dispossession. What is unsettled through the act of settlement? Where does the Unheimlich live in the Heim?

Curated by Literaturhaus Neukölln and moderated by Nele Mailin Obermüller, the conversation will be in English.

(EN)

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7 pm | Salon am Moritzplatz, Oranienstraße 58

June 12

there is no first draft of a life: An evening with Victoria Chang & Bianca Stone

Two outstanding poets from the United States, Bianca Stone and Victoria Chang, will read from their most recent collections and speak with Ryan Ruby about their writing.

In her poetry collection With My Back to the World, Victoria Chang enters into dialogue with the abstract, geometric paintings of the artist Agnes Martin. Chang tests and interrogates the ordering principles of the paintings – their grids, fields of color, and lines – in which she recognizes her own depression, “a group of parallel lines that want to touch, but never can,” as well as a sense of fragmentation, a repetition of gestures that can never reveal the larger whole: “No one tells you that you’ll never see your own painting because you’ll be dead.”

In her two most recent collections, The Near and Distant World and What is Otherwise Infinite, Bianca Stone repeatedly returns to the question of how meaning can be asserted when every attempt to grasp something fully – whether theoretically or linguistically – is not only doomed to fail but may even increase the distance between us and things: “My greatest fear: / to be condemned to theory. / Without song, without my trash, / my weird ottava rima, my pointless point.” In contrast, she proposes a poetics of approximation, “infinite in its never-wholeness,” which offers consolation precisely because it does not seek to subsume everything into itself.

The event is part of Poesiefestival Berlin.

(EN)

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7.30 pm | Haus für Poesie, Knaackstr. 97

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May 12

Alice Hasters - “Anti Opfer”

Book launch, moderated by Miryam Schellbach.

Everyone is talking about victims. Yet increasingly, the term no longer refers to people who have genuinely suffered injustice, but rather to those perceived as disruptive to social harmony, overly sensitive, burdensome to others, or eager to claim moral superiority. If only they complained less, the argument goes, many of society’s problems would disappear. Cruelty and emotional hardness are becoming newly valorized, while victims themselves are held to impossibly inhumane standards. At the same time, powerful networks of patriarchal complicity continue to reshape the world for the worse.

Alice Hasters examines a cultural transformation that coincides strikingly with the resurgence of authoritarianism and fascism. What becomes of a society in which sensitivity is dismissed as elitist, and the idea that might makes right is celebrated as authenticity? With intellectual rigor and urgency, she opposes the spread of this new hardness by foregrounding the political force of solidarity, empathy, and human interconnectedness.

(DE)

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7.30 pm | Colosseum, Gleimstr. 33

May 13

O Mother: Life writing and the search for the irretrievable

In the summer of 2024, Sandra Hetzl, a writer and prolific translator of contemporary Arabic literature, travelled to Turkey in search of the biological mother she had never met: Selma Yılma, a former so-called “gastarbeiter” who left Germany and returned home, where she later died. Hetzl was armed with the only one of her mother’s belongings in her possession: a copy of Shams al-Maarif al-Kubra, or The Sun of Great Knowledge, a 13th-century Arabic compendium of enchantments, talismans, instructions for summoning demons and spells to bring the dead back to life.

Artist emet ezell spent the following summer, 2025, in their ancestral home of Sabile, Latvia, the town from which their grandfather’s family was deported in May 1915. ezell had been commissioned to exhibit their art in the synagogue their great-grandparents once attended, which was looted and damaged during the campaign of ethnic cleansing and now converted into Sabile’s Arts and Culture Center.

In this evening of readings and conversation, ezell will read from their essay ‘The Artist Does Not Believe in Healing,’ which reflects on the process of putting together that exhibition, while Hetzl will read excerpts from Looking for Selma, the book manuscript that recounts her ongoing search for her mother, translated into English by Ayça Türkoǧlu. With Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus, Hetzl and ezell will discuss life writing and the (im)possibility of return, retrieval and healing. How past is the past, and what does the mother have to do with it?

An evening of readings and conversation addressing potential futures between the river and the sea, curated by Abdalrahman Alqalaq, Katharine Halls and Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus.

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8 pm | Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstr. 227

May 16

Utopische Unterernährung

Mark Fisher observed that depression can be understood as receiving the world. Mass media, in turn, seeks to transform this reception into entertainment through its dystopian narratives. Today, film and video games seem almost obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios, with the post-apocalypse emerging as the dominant genre within the entertainment industry. Are we, through zombie stories or plague-ridden city ruins, anticipating the end of humanity itself, or is capitalism unconsciously fantasizing about destruction as a form of political catharsis? And what similarities or divergences exist between film and video games in this regard?

Moderated by Thomas Spies, screenwriter and director Ervehea Ziza joins game researcher and media activist Leonhard Müllner of Total Refusal to discuss the absence of utopia in contemporary storytelling media, particularly in film and video games.

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7.30 pm | diffrakt, Crellestr. 22

May 17

Literarische Führung: Vicki Baum, Irmgard Keun, Gabriele Tergit

Apparently, the property owner of Siegmunds Hof 21 opposed the installation of a commemorative plaque on the former residence of Gabriele Tergit. This is not an isolated case of attempts to obstruct public remembrance of writers on building façades. Another example is the memorial plaque honoring Armin T. Wegner at Kaiserdamm 16, which in 2002 was installed not on the building itself but on the sidewalk. One frequently cited justification is that such commemorations supposedly diminish the value of the property. The plaque honoring Gabriele Tergit, finally installed in October 2025, was therefore placed on a neighboring building.

The literary walking tour “Gabriele Tergit, Irmgard Keun, Vicki Baum” is dedicated to the three major prose writers of the Weimar Republic. It highlights significant biographical moments in their lives and presents examples of their work.

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11 am | Meeting point: in front of the Literaturhaus Berlin, Fasanenstraße 23

Both Patrik and Theresia are on (separate) writing residencies this month, which means that the next edition of Reading List Berlin is coming to you in June. Until then, stay soft!

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May 5

Lena Gorelik: Alle unsere Mütter

In conversation with Thomas Böhm, Lena Gorelik presents her novel „Alle meine Mütter“, just published by Rowohlt:
“I lay them out like cobblestones. We place our steps on what we have become thanks to – or despite of –our mothers.”

This year, Lena Gorelik is awarded the Preis der Literaturhäuser. She is not only the author of several widely acclaimed novels (most recently in 2021: „Wer wir sind“, Rowohlt), but also uses the opportunities created by literature and events to respond to social developments in a critically nuanced way. As co-editor of „Trotzdem sprechen“ (Ullstein, 2024), she advocated for maintaining dialogue following October 7. The reading performance she created together with Carolin Emcke of József Debreczeni’s „Kaltes Krematorium“ (S. Fischer, 2024, trans. Timea Tankó) created a contribution to remembering Nazi crimes.

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

May 6

Kitchen Table Reading

Join us for an evening of readings by members of Kitchen Table, a Berlin-based writing group named in homage to the 1980s US feminist women-of-colour press. Founded in 2022 by critic and historian of science Edna Bonhomme, the group meets monthly to read, write, share resources, support one another, and reflect — often with joy and humour — on what it means to be a writer in difficult times. Working across genres, Kitchen Table members will share excerpts from works in progress and previously published pieces.

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7.30 pm | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21

May 8

Sharon Dodua Otoo: “So, in etwa, ist es geschehen”

They are on their way to Timmendorfer Strand: Amata Haller and her boss Heinz Brockhaus, who has offered to drive her there. Amata is in a hurry – her mother is waiting, as she does every year on May 3. On this day, the sinking of the Cap Arcona is commemorated, the catastrophe toward the end of the Second World War which her grandfather narrowly survived. The heat presses down on the overcrowded roads, the journey keeps getting longer, Brockhaus talks incessantly, and Amata loses her composure. By the end of the day, Brockhaus will no longer be alive, and months later, Amata will stand trial.

Moderated by David Zabel, reading by Amina Nahin Eisner and Asad Schwarz-Msesilamba.

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestr. 125

May 9

Christiane Rösinger - The Joy of Ageing

Reading with music.

Christiane Rösinger is a musician, a Kreuzberg local, and a grandmother. As far as she’s concerned, things could go on like this forever – if it weren’t for getting older and financial worries. Aging can’t be stopped, but to earn a bit of money, Christiane decides to write a guide to growing old. Without illusions, but full of energy. A forceful call to stop putting up with how society treats women who are no longer young.

At the same time, it’s not so easy to find a relaxed attitude toward aging yourself. This is already evident in conversations with her friends and their differing experiences and opinions: there’s the dog woman, the self-optimizer, the one who moved to the countryside. Nowhere to be seen: a positive role model. Where are the examples to follow? And above all: what actually helps when you suddenly find yourself in the stroke unit at the hospital?

Not a guidebook, but a sharply funny book full of memories, reflections, and stories that ultimately offers a serious piece of advice: complain less, live more. Because being old means being free.

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7.30 pm | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21

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April 28

»Gewalt am Denken« Wann beginnt Faschismus?

Nils Schniederjahn in conversation with Mark Terkessidis.

When does fascism begin? This is the question explored by the author and psychologist Mark Terkessidis in his book Gewalt am Denken. He examines how authoritarian tendencies emerge, why nostalgia becomes a political impulse, and why even progressive forces are part of a new continuum of risk.

Mark Terkessidis, born in 1966, is a freelance author who has been engaging with the New Right in Europe since the 1990s. He has published numerous books on migration, racism, and memory, and has taught on these subjects at universities. His most recent book is Wessen Erinnerung zählt? Koloniale Vergangenheit und Rassismus heute.

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125

April 30

Die Ästhetik des Widerstands. Variationen zu Peter Weiss

Audio performance by Fabian Saul and Tanasgol Sabbagh – in conversation with Alice Hasters, Sandra Hetzl and Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus.

Die Ästhetik des Widerstands – Variationen zu Peter Weiss does not present itself as a retrospective on a canonical text, but as an attempt to read it as a handbook for the present—for its ruptures, its demands, and the ongoing struggles over memory, language, and political resistance. The radio play will be performed as live by Fabian Saul and Tanasgol Sabbagh, and discussed with Alice Hasters, Sandra Hetzl and Tomer Dotan-Dreyfus. Section by section, the text is read, interrupted, and collectively examined: What can be learned from it today? How can it be understood as a handbook for the present? How might a critique of performative protest aesthetics contribute to developing concrete, effective forms of political action?

The event is an independent live production by Literaturhaus Neukölln at Spore Initiative and is based on the radio play by Fabian Saul, created after the novel by Peter Weiss and originally produced for Deutschlandfunk (2025).

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7 pm | Spore Initiative, Hermannstraße 86

May 02

Crossroads#5 – Percival Everett und Naomi Beckwith

Percival Everett is internationally celebrated for his formally inventive fiction, but is less widely known for his painterly practice. Yet painting and drawing have long been central to his artistic life. Working across text and image, he probes the limits of narrative and abstraction, asking how meaning is constructed, how perception is shaped, and how representation both reveals and obscures.

In dialogue with Naomi Beckwith (Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation; Artistic Director, documenta 16), Everett will reflect on the interplay between literature and visual art. Beckwith’s multidisciplinary curatorial approach, grounded in close collaboration with artists and expansive thinking about context and display, offers a compelling counterpart to Everett’s cross-genre practice.

Together, they will explore how literature and visual art intersect not merely as parallel disciplines, but as mutually illuminating forms of inquiry and imagination.

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3 pm | Hamburger Bahnhof, Invalidenstraße 50

May 03

Volksbühne gegen Militarisierung

Berlin is gearing up for war: conscription centres are to be set up in empty department stores, factories are being converted into arms production facilities, and on every street corner there is Bundeswehr advertising. All the signs point to militarisation. From summer 2027, hundreds of thousands of young people are to be conscripted for the first time in years, assessed to determine whether they are physically and mentally ‘fit’ to kill and die for Germany in case of emergency. For the first time since the Second World War, Germany is dreaming of having the largest army in Europe.

Politicians claim that this military build-up defends our freedom and democracy – and therefore also your right to oppose conscription. Yet in many places, the school strikes against conscription were met with requirements for medical certificates, students being locked inside school buildings, and police action. Nevertheless, in over 130 towns and cities, around 50,000 students protested, thereby demonstrating that they are not prepared to subordinate their future to Germany’s military interests.

“The Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz stands in solidarity with all conscientious objectors and opposes the reintroduction of compulsory military service. We believe that security is not achieved through rearmament and coercion, but through self-determination, social justice and international solidarity.”

On 3 May, Volksbühne invites you to the Grüner Salon: for a panel discussion and an open consultation on the topic of conscientious objection. Afterwards, there will be a workshop in preparation for the school strike on 8 May: designing banners and placards, and screen-printing on textiles. Feel free to bring your own clothes.

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12 pm | Volksbühne, Linienstraße 227

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April 19

Archiv der Leerstellen: Leben und Widerstände der iranischen Diaspora in Berlin (1970-2000) Teil I

What happens to a collective that is subjected to systematic state violence? How can memory be understood as a political intervention? In this opening session, we present the archive and search within the history of Daadkhahi for possibilities of remembrance and alternative forms of historiography. We examine how the pursuit of justice has been practiced and sustained in Berlin exile, and turn to the question of mourning: how does it shape political organizing?

This session introduces the project Archiv der Leerstellen and reflects on oral history as a practice of resistance. We address the crisis of meaning that follows political violence and displacement, and ask: how has Daadkhahi influenced other political movements? And how have practices of mourning become a collective political act for the Iranian community in Berlin?

With Sanaz Azimipour, Parastoo Forouhar & Mihan Rousta, moderated by Maryam Palizban. Filmscreening and panel discussion.

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7 pm | Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstr. 227

April 20

Judith Schalansky - Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel

“Marmor, Quecksilber, Nebel” is the title of Judith Schalansky’s new book. In this narrative essay, published recently by Suhrkamp, she explores the states of matter in which the world presents itself to us: solid, liquid, ephemeral. A block of marble on a ship in the Aegean leads her from the myth of Pygmalion to the floor of the Berlin State Library and to a lost sculpture of a pig; a journey to Mexico takes her from Noah’s Ark to poisoned rivers and to a lucha librematch between Diablo Azteca, El Santo, and Psicosis.

Critic Nico Bleutge and poet Nadja Küchenmeister will discuss with the author how the essay connects past and present, myth and reality, and sparks poetic reflections.

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

April 22

Voice & Power - Nani Jansen Reventlow

Chapters is delighted to welcome Nani Jansen Reventlow for an evening of conversation around her book Radical Justice.

Nani is a human rights lawyer and the founder of Systemic Justice, a law firm for movements working to put the power of strategic litigation in the hands of marginalised communities.

Radical Justice explores how change happens, and who gets to shape it. Moving between personal stories, global case studies, and wider questions of power, it asks what it means to understand the root causes of injustice, and how each of us might play a role in addressing them.

In conversation with Sharmaine Lovegrove, the evening will explore questions of voice, power, and responsibility. Who is heard. Who is represented. And how change is built, collectively and over time.

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7 pm | Chapters, Wilsnacker Str. 60

April 24

Book launch with Daniela Dröscher, Felicitas Hoppe and Miriam Zeh

Daniela Dröscher’s book “Sprechen” is a deeply personal story of self-empowerment—from a silent woman to one who speaks publicly. It also raises the question of how we should speak in order to truly understand one another.

For the writer Daniela Dröscher, speaking was never an innocuous means of communication. Growing up as the child of a newcomer in the Hunsrück, caught between standard German and a broad Palatine dialect, speaking proved to be such a double-edged act of adaptation that she chose silence instead. Even later she long lacked the courage to stand by her own words—her fear of being recognized as an upstart or being misunderstood was too great. With radical openness, she recounts her emancipation from a shamefully silent woman to one who speaks publicly. In doing so, she reflects on whether a willingness to misunderstand might actually be the true prerequisite for genuine understanding and a productive social dialogue.

In “Reisen”, Felicitas Hoppe writes about restlessness and inertia, and the privilege of being free to travel: “A person must travel—with all its risks and side effects.”

Life is a journey with an unknown destination. But how do we live while traveling—how do we sleep, where do we stay, what do we eat, how do we love, argue, and work while constantly on the move, exploring the world with all its risks and side effects in order to come a little closer to the place we long for? Who could know this better than Felicitas Hoppe, who since her circumnavigation of the globe on a container ship has effortlessly crossed all boundaries with her imagination and love of storytelling. As she recounts the adventure of her exuberant travel biography, which once began with her as a homebody, she reflects so insightfully and vividly on the everyday life and metaphysics of travel that we might feel we never need to leave our four walls again—and at the same time want to set off immediately.

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7.30 pm | Colosseum, Gleimstraße 33

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April 14

A. L. Kennedy: Alle freuen sich

“Everyone Is Happy” is the title of A. L. Kennedy’s new book, published by Geparden Verlag, and so are we, because the Scottish author will be joining us this evening. In thirteen stories, we encounter characters from A. L. Kennedy’s narrative universe: a newlywed who is unsure whether she has made a mistake after all; a protagonist who must settle into a new life after losing her husband, daughter, and mother; a panic attack in the middle of a London train station.

A. L. Kennedy puts her characters through a lot, approaching her work with empathy and humor, blending comedy and sarcasm in her own unique way.

Readings by Elna Lindgens will be from both the original and the translation; the discussion with translator Ingo Herzke will be conducted in English.

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

April 15

On Becoming a Writer: An Evening with Colson Whitehead

From the zombie apocalypse to the Harlem underworld, Colson Whitehead doesn’t just write stories—he builds entire worlds. This evening offers a rare, wide-ranging conversation with the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. The event is diving into the mechanics of his genius, the grit of his creative process, and a first look at his highly anticipated 2026 release, Cool Machine. How does a writer reinvent American literature every few years? And where exactly does the line between history and imagination begin to blur? Don’t miss this chance to step inside the mind of a modern master.

Moderated by Wieland Freund, author, translator, literary critic and editor at Die Welt.

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7 pm | Villa Elisabeth, Invalidenstr. 3

April 15

Book launch: Helene Bukowski - “Wer möchte nicht im Leben bleiben”

In 1985, a young pianist in Neubrandenburg takes her own life. Decades later, the writer Helene Bukowski stumbles upon her story. She approaches Christina gently, searching her biography for cracks and upheavals, but also for moments of great happiness. She meets a father who wants to realize his own dreams through his daughter, a mother who loves to take photographs, and a piano that stands immovably in the apartment. Bukowski follows Christina to Berlin, to the special music school, with its cold practice rooms and daily drills. Later to Moscow, to study at the conservatory, through torrential rain and nights full of snow. And she discovers an illness for which a diagnosis has only recently been established.

For anyone interested, a free guided tour of the Stasi Records Archive begins at 5 p.m.; to register, please email einblick-ins-geheime@bundesarchiv.de or call 030 18 665-6699

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6.30 pm | Stasi-Zentrale, Ruschestraße 103

April 16

Literarisch Solidarisch: Perspektiven auf einen neuen Literaturbetrieb

“It’s really always the same sense of despair,” writes Hatice Açıkgöz in the foreword to the anthology Literarisch Solidarisch – Perspectives on a New Literary Scene (Verbrecher Verlag 2026): “It always comes down to whether the project is mainstream enough to be published by a major commercial publisher. Almost always, the answer is no.”

Driven by this sense of desperation, Hatice Açıkgöz launched the podcast Literarisch Solidarisch in 2023 together with Dara Brexendorf and Zara Zerbe. The anthology she edited under the same title now brings together seventeen authors who examine the literary world from various marginalized perspectives. Three of them will be guests at the Haus für Poesie this evening: Dara Brexendorf, Özlem Özgül Dündar, Heike Geißler will read from the anthology and discuss with Hatice Açıkgöz.

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7.30 pm | Haus für Poesie, Knaackstr. 97

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April 8

LISTENING SESSION: ENIGMA

In October 2023, the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program brought together a group of writers for a multilingual reading performance with music, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Ingeborg Bachmann’s death. The event gathered writers and artists in response to Bachmann’s poem Enigma, composed during her time in Berlin in the early 1960s.

Enigma will now be released as an audio play as part of the series Bad Words. The release will be celebrated with a special listening session, featuring live performances by Tanasgol Sabbagh and Fabian Saul, alongside the recorded piece.

The audio play features readings by Quinn Latimer, Snejanka Mihaylova, Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, Tanasgol Sabbagh, Nhã Thuyên, and Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung, with additional contributions from Jamieson Webster and Marcus Coelen, and music by Fabian Saul.

Curated by Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, Fabian Saul, and Mathias Zeiske.

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7 pm | daadgalerie, Oranienstraße 161

April 9

learning that I share the Earth with animals beyond my imagination.

An evening with Brandon Kilbourne & Lara Rüter, moderated by Asmus Trautsch.

On this evening, two poets come together whose lyrical and essayistic work engages with related questions: How do we humans think about animals — the living and the dead — beyond all anthropomorphism? What do we learn from them, what interests are at play in each case, and at whose expense are these interests pursued?

Brandon Kilbourne (born 1983 in Houma, Louisiana) is an evolutionary biologist at Berlin’s Museum für Naturkunde. His research focuses primarily on the morphology and variation of anatomical traits in animals, for instance in studies of skull and bone shapes across different species. He is particularly interested in how his field — natural history — is inseparably intertwined with colonialism and, in particular, with transatlantic slavery. These dark undercurrents beneath a history that proclaimed itself enlightened, and the ominous entanglement of knowledge production and exploitation, are also central themes in his poetry debut: the Cave Canem Prize–winning volume Natural History (Graywolf Press 2025).

Lara Rüter (born 1990 in Hanover) shares with Brandon Kilbourne not only an interest in sea cows and dioramas. In her debut volume amoretten in netzen (Verlag Das Wunderhorn 2024), awarded the Kranichsteiner Literaturförderpreis of the Deutscher Literaturfonds, she writes about “romantically foolish” animals such as dolphins — these “super-intelligent creatures” — about a centuries-old Greenland shark, and a white mammoth. Rüter’s book-length essay Affenliebe recounts her years of work at a primate research institute and her everyday interactions with the inhabitants of the monkey house. The book also addresses human relationships with animals, the destruction of habitats, and human fantasies of restitution. Affenliebe is an erudite work populated by key witnesses ranging from Gaius Plinius Secundus and Jane Goodall to Kafka’s ape Rotpeter from Ein Bericht an eine Akademie. At the same time, it is a deeply personal book in which Rüter describes how apes quietly made their way into her life.

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7.30 pm | Haus für Poesie, Knaackstr. 97

April 9

Debüts der Saison: Alisha Gamisch, Clara Leinemann and Son Lewandowski

New books and their authors in conversation with Yael Inokai and Thorsten Dönges.

In “Parasiti”, Alisha Gamisch powerfully traces the life journeys of three Russian-German women from Novosibirsk in the 1960s to Fürstenfeldbruck in the recent past.

In “Gelbe Monster”, Clara Leinemann writes with astonishing ease about a protagonist who, with the help of other women, manages to leave a relationship that has turned violent.

And in “Die Routinen”, Son Lewandowski uses artistic daring to offer us insights into the life of a competitive gymnast. The book dissects a world that everyone suspects is harsh, but where no one sees—or wants to see—just how exploitative a system is that is coated in so much glitter and spray paint.

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

April 10

Mark Mazower: Writing the History of Antisemitism Today

In this talk, the historian and author Mark Mazower will explore the reasons why contextualisation and historical analysis are indispensable means to understand recent developments in the meaning of the term antisemitism, and offer a way to evaluate the impact of cultural and geopolitical shifts upon its usage. He will question the value of a notion of an eternally unchanging conception of the phenomenon and ask what the costs have been of conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism. He will touch upon the contemporary politics of the issue and ask how we can explain how the fight against prejudice has come to be so politically loaded and fraught with peril.

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10 am | Centre Marc Bloch, Friedrichstrasse 191

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March 30

AI from Nowhere. On living and computing

This panel brings together three leading theorists of computing, biology, and speculative philosophy – Giuseppe Longo, Lindsay Lerman and Adam Nocek – to weigh in on the limits and possibilities of artificial intelligence and computing more broadly in the context of organismic complexity. Critical of deeply entrenched views (in science, engineering, and now philosophy) that reduce living and thinking systems to computational processes (even when computing is stretched to its mathematical limits), the panelists nevertheless reflect on what computing might be capable of expressing, if not the underlying functions of living systems. From design and somatic practices to theoretical biology and speculative engineering, Giuseppe Longo, Lindsay Lerman, and Adam Nocek draw on a range of discourses to investigate the real, albeit porous and politically negotiated, boundaries between what lives and what computes.

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7 pm | Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Straße der Pariser Kommune 8

April 1

Esther Schüttpelz: Grüne Welle

Book launch moderated by Marie Kaiser.

After going to the cinema with her best friend, a woman gets into her car and drives home – until a diversion takes her off her usual route. She misses exit after exit, straying further and further from home, where her husband is waiting for her. Within a night and a day, everything becomes clear: perhaps it would be better if she never went back to him. Because as unsettling as the darkness of the highways and gas stations may be, the true danger is waiting for her at home.

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8 pm | Volksbühne, Linienstraße 227

April 4

3. Berliner Preis für Science-Fiction – Finale

For the third time, Radiator Verlag has announced the Berlin Prize for Science Fiction Short Stories. This time, the theme is: 404: Error Code. We usually encounter the message 404: Page not found as a dead end during our forays through the World Wide Web. The code 404 indicates that the content of a website has been removed, a file has been deleted, or a URL, the Internet address, has been changed. But we encounter “system errors” everywhere. In the entries for the prize, this idea is therefore developed far beyond the Internet and linked to various themes in the speculative and socially critical narrative tradition of science fiction.

A preliminary jury has selected a total of eight finalists from the submissions: Toi Tautorus, Lotti Spieler, Leo Lemke, Maria Orlovskaya, Tim Slagman, Joe Otim Dramiga, Kerstin Hörig.

At the final reading evening, the invited authors will present their exciting texts in short readings. An independent jury consisting of author Zara Zerbe, the owners of the sci-fi bookstore Otherland, and author and journalist Philipp Böhm will select the winning text. The event will be moderated by publishers Nikolas Göllner and Iphigenia Andreou.

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7 pm | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21

April 4

Zu Gast im Automaten: Aufstieg und Fall der Automatenrestaurants

Lecture with Alwin Cubasch.

The restaurant is a central place in the modern metropolis. It is here that people become city dwellers. Who am I? Who do I want to be? Who do I want to meet?

But in the restaurant, city dwellers do not merely encounter themselves. They also experience new technology. Around 1900, the vending machine restaurant was such a new culinary-technological testing ground.

In the dining area of the vending machine restaurant, central questions regarding the order of modern society were addressed: Who is the consumer? And what is a consumer object? What value does anonymity hold? How automated do we want to live? And what do we mean by comfort? Behind the vending machines, the restaurant reorganized the engine room of society. Who spreads the butter on the rolls, and at what cost? Who cleans the machines? Whose work becomes redundant? And who becomes invisible behind the machine?

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6.30 pm | Deutsches Theater Berlin, Schumannstraße 13A

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March 24

Wie Ökonomen unsere Zukunft verspielen

Daniel Stähr in conversation with Rüdiger Bachmann, moderated by Christian Dunker.

Economists sit at the center of power, advising governments and corporations, and shaping the fate of nations and institutions. Their enormous influence extends from politics into our private lives; they determine the size of our paychecks and our matches on dating apps. Whether in the face of the climate crisis or the pandemic: Should we place our trust in a science devoid of facts, one that knows nothing of morality or justice – a science whose models and theories created the very system that made this crisis possible in the first place, yet is incapable of recognizing its warning signs?

Economics is by far the most influential social science. In his book “The New Prophets”, economist Daniel Stähr offers a critique of the dominance of his own discipline and its influence on politics and our society.

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7.30 pm | Urania, An der Urania 17

March 25

Meisterwerke der Literatur und was sie uns lehren

Wolfgang M. Schmitt in conversation with Laura de Weck about Ingeborg Bachmann’s »Das dreißigste Jahr«.

Ingeborg Bachmann was born 100 years ago. In 1961, she published a collection of short stories titled »Das dreißigste Jahr«, whose timeless beauty is deeply moving and whose themes resonate with us today.

For the Austrian writer and poet, the postwar period marked the beginning of a new era. The years are marked by conformity and numbness, by structures of violence. Many characters are stuck in an old language and thus in the past. At the same time, we hear – for example in the story “Undine geht” – a radical feminist voice that promises a new beginning and a breakthrough. The texts, however, are far from being historical documents of conflicts long believed to be outdated; they deal with the impositions the individual experiences in bourgeois society, with the exhausted self –long before neoliberalism took hold—and with collaboration where refusal would have been necessary. Podcaster and film critic Wolfgang M. Schmitt discusses this 20th-century literary masterpiece with Laura de Weck, author of “Lieblingsmenschen” and host of the SRF Literature Club.

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7.30 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125

March 27 & 28

Belle Santos & Emi Ogura: MORNING TIME

When one experiences loss, how does one enter grief? What rituals are needed to find a way into mourning? Which community holds one when feeling all alone? What routines and which gestures provide steadiness when everything else seems out of place? What textures and smells bring comfort? And when does grieving become work?

The performance MORNING TIME explores these questions in a time when grieving seems difficult to access but is so often needed. Losing a close person disrupts everything and society invents rituals to bridge the void left behind. But what happens when these rituals are over? And what about erosions one experiences that don’t find an echo in society? When silences grow heavier, and the body carries an absence, a space and a time is needed in which one can simply be with what remains. In ancient times, professional mourners were thus called. Their work helped the bereaved to enter their state of grief, and allow the transition to the life after.

In MORNING TIME, the Sophiensæle Kantine is covered with simple white sheets, which serve as projection surfaces, working materials, landscapes and fabric. In relation to them, a unique system of care, presence and work unfolds.

The sheets begin to dance.

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7.30 pm | Sophiensæle, Sophienstraße 18

March 28

Let’s Play Critical. Police Simulator

Let’s play and conversation with Vanessa Eileen Thompson and Thomas Spies.

Video games are political. As the largest entertainment medium of our time, they constantly reflect – both directly and indirectly – societies’ perceptions of themselves and their institutions.

One of these institutions is the police. In the commercially successful (and state-funded) Police Simulator: Patrol Officers (2022), the Munich-based development studio Aesir Interactive sends us onto the streets of the fictional U.S. city of Brighton, where we go on patrol as a police officer. The title joins the studio’s lineup of other “non-violent” work simulators– yet the game features violent interactions and power dynamics on multiple levels, while simultaneously obscuring real-world forms of structural violence.

Vanessa Thompson and Thomas Spies discuss these structures as they explore virtual Brighton live. They also address phenomena such as the ongoing militarization of society and the expansion of surveillance systems, which are being increasingly promoted (including in the media) in Germany in particular.

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7.30 pm | diffrakt, Crellestraße 22

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March 16

A Hundred Years of
The Future of the Book

There is little doubt, as El Lissitzky argues in The Future of the Book (1926), that ‘an alteration in the structure and mode of language implies a change in the usual appearance of the book’. Conversely, one can argue that the formal structures of the book shape not only physical and intellectual encounters with the object, but also future modes of thought.

Drawing on a vision of the future from a hundred years ago, this symposium asks what editorial experimentation can mean in the present and how the processes of book production – design, printing and distribution – influence the interpretation of the world. Drawing on five interrelated aspects articulated in El Lissitzky’s manifesto, the workshop explores (1) the material and political history of printing techniques examining the evolving relationship between materialism and dematerialization in contemporary society, (2) the concept of the book as architecture staging a unique encounter between ‘sound’ (time) and ‘exposure’ (space), (3) the role of writing in editorial experimentation, (4) the differential bodily experiences associated with various printing techniques (e.g. the immediacy of vision in American posters versus the deliberateness of reading in Russian revolutionary poster books), and (5) the modalities of reproduction and circulation.

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from 10 am | ICI Berlin, Christinenstr. 18-19

March 17

Matthias Nawrat - »Das glückliche Schicksal«

In 1983, the young Polish psychologist Wanda Karłowska travels to Venice to interview Henryk Mrugalski, who is living there in exile, about his research. Or is it an interrogation? Suspicion seems to hang between them, and yet there is a connection that points beyond who they are today. A game between equal opponents begins. The two delve deep into recent European history and raise questions that humanity itself poses to us. A captivatingly vivid novel about life and survival on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Moderated by Gesa Ufer.

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestr. 125

March 18

Butler Trouble - Zeitschrift für Ideengeschichte | Heft XX/1

When Judith Butler described the Hamas attacks as “armed resistance” in Paris in March 2024, the press was in an uproar. Criticism ranged from “disturbing coldness” to “intellectual capitulation.” Yet this controversy is only the latest in a long line: since *Gender Trouble* in 1990, Butler has been “much admired and much reviled” . Butler’s status reveals what global intellectualism means today—navigating the tension between the academic complexity of highly specialized debates and a pop-cultural aura with worldwide YouTube reach. The non-binary author is an iconic star in some circles, a demonized figure in others. Both are phenomena that cannot be explained by the person alone or by their often challenging texts. Butler’s academic work defies categorization into any single discipline: ranging from philosophy and rhetoric to the institutionalization of gender studies. The multifaceted body of work encompasses performativity theory, analyses of affects such as grief and anger, readings of Kafka, and statements on the Middle East question rooted in the history of ideas. The panel discussion wants to take Butler seriously as a phenomenon of theoretical and intellectual history: not to smooth over controversies, but to reframe them in light of the challenges and contested manifestations of global intellectualism in the present.

With Petra Gehring, Eva von Redecker, Thomas Meinecke and Diedrich Diederichsen. Moderation: Eva Geulen

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8 pm | Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstr. 227

March 19 - 20

Die Kalkulierbarkeit der Literatur. Praktiken, Diskurse, Mediendispositive

In the discourse of cultural criticism, decisions are often made very quickly regarding whether—and, if so, how—the various phenomena—namely, developments in media technology, the institutional restructuring of the literary world, and transformations in the relationship between “literature” and “the economy”—are interconnected, even though much remains unclear. From a literary studies perspective, it is therefore advisable to take a step back and examine the tension between literature and various dimensions of calculability in terms of its current and historical functional logics: How can the calculability of literature be differentiated against the backdrop of recent and older developments? Which practices, discourses, institutions, and media apparatuses must be taken into account? And which theoretical tools and quantitative analytical methods can be deployed to examine the broad spectrum of phenomena?

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from 12 pm | Humboldt-Universität, Raum 1066e, Unter den Linden 6

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March 10

Reading: Geetanjali Shree

The acclaimed writer and current DAAD-Literature Fellow in conversation with Thomas Meaney, editor of Granta.

The evening will explore Shree’s writing and her recent work, focusing on her distinctive use of language and form, and on the ways her fiction engages with memory, gender, and history. Writing in Hindi as a deliberate literary and political choice, Shree often begins from images and fragments, allowing stories to unfold that question borders — between nations, generations, and genres — while remaining closely attuned to everyday lives.

Geetanjali Shree is the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, awarded jointly with her translator Daisy Rockwell for Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi). The novel’s French translation was shortlisted for the Prix Émile Guimet. Shree is the author of several novels and short story collections, and her work has been translated into many Indian and international languages.

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8 pm | daadgalerie, Oranienstraße 161

March 11

Schreiben für die Katz – Robert Walsers Feuilletons

Swiss author Lukas Bärfuss, American literary scholar Susan Bernofsky, and Kurdish-German filmmaker Ayşe Polat present Robert Walser’s feuilleton texts – together with Reto Sorg, director of the Robert Walser Center in Bern.

The occasion is the publication of Walser’s collected feuilleton texts in the “Berner Ausgabe” (Suhrkamp). For decades, Walser devoted himself to “writing for nothing” and wrote articles with “the most sincere pleasure” for all kinds of newspapers, from Bern to Berlin, from Prague to Vienna. Susan Bernofsky of Columbia University, Walser’s translator and biographer, describes him as one of the first bloggers of the modern age. For Lukas Bärfuss, Walser is a mentor when it comes to mindfulness towards the ordinary and everyday. Ayşe Polat is working on a film adaptation of Robert Walser’s Der Gehülfe, starring Devrim Lingnau, among others.

The event is followed by a reception hosted by the Swiss Embassy, with Swiss wine and cheese.

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

March 11

Eva von Redecker: Dieser Drang nach Härte

Contemporary fascism has taken on a new form that is not easy to recognize and even more difficult to explain. In Redecker’s groundbreaking analysis, its diffuse nature takes shape—and becomes exposed to counter attack. Redecker locates its core in the invocation of an unconditional claim to ownership, defended at all costs.

At her book premiere at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the author will discuss the following questions with Margarita Tsomou, HAU curator for theory and discourse: What continuities or turning points connect fascism with capitalism and colonialism? How can we recognize fascism, and how can its concept and theory be updated now that the West has betrayed the protective measures of international law? And to what extent is the authoritarian breakdown of the liberal order already inherent in it?

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8 pm | HAU1, Stresemannstraße 29

March 11

»Oben rechts. Rechtspopulismus als Klassenprojekt«

How can the rise of right-wing populism be understood—as a protest by those who feel “left behind” or as a deliberately promoted class project?

Sebastian Friedrich and Nils Editors Schniederjann discuss this question with Heinrich Geiselberger and author Thomas Biebricher, whose book “Oben rechts. Rechtspopulismus als Klassenprojekt“ opens up new perspectives.

The book operates under the hypothesis that the focus on the ‘woke’ left and the “losers” in debates about Trump & Co. has created a blind spot. Assuming that politicians such as Trump, Tino Chrupalla, or Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš also elect themselves, another “class faction” comes into view: conservative men who run their own businesses. This milieu has produced not only precursors such as Silvio Berlusconi and Christoph Blocher, but also supporters such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. It is precisely this group of small and large political entrepreneurs that the contributions in this volume examine closely. The thesis pursued here is that right-wing populism is not primarily a spontaneous revolt by “poorer voters,” but rather a deliberately pursued project.

The event marks the start of the series ”Zeitanalyse: Analytische und theoretische Perspektiven auf Rechtspopulismus und Rechtsextremismus”

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8 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125

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March 3

All You Can Read - mit Josephine Apraku und Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç

How does literature change when writing and reading take place at the kitchen table? In their new reading series “All You Can Read,” Josephine Apraku and Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç serve up literature at the public kitchen table with their guests: for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “All You Can Read” invites you to a meal where texts, memories, family influences, and political issues are discussed with mouths full. The table is set, be their guests!

Requirements for participation: Bring your own dishes (plate, soup bowl, knife, fork, spoon, and a glass)!

The kick-off event of the “All You Can Read” series is an event organized by the Literaturhaus Berlin in cooperation with the – recently defunded – Goethe-Institut im Exil.

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7 pm | Zirkuszelt CABUWAZI, Columbiadamm 84

March 4

Book launch: Hayat Erdoğan - “Hauptsache kein Zeitgeist”

A girl learns the beat of the Turkish national anthem on a drum. Years later, her mother is at the door and pulls her by the hand, back to Germany. Years later still, she is abandoned by a man she calls “Nobody,” and she can’t shake her longing for Nobody. Anything to not become cynical.

In “Hauptsache kein Zeitgeist”, the present unfolds before us like a woven carpet in 24 hours. The heroine of the novel is a cosmopolitan and a migrant. She practices affirmation and meditation, educates herself in social philosophy, and rolls her eyes at the dreary tropes of scientists at conferences. She travels to Trieste and meets John, travels into the past and gets to know herself. She doesn’t want to be modern, but she is.

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8 pm | Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstr. 227

March 4

KW X DAAD: Elif Batuman and Merve Emre

An evening of literary conversation with Elif Batuman and Merve Emre, whose work bridges fiction and criticism, the aesthetic life and the life of the mind. Through readings and discussion, the authors reflect on books that shaped them — and on how literature forms both the way we write and experience the world.

Elif Batuman is the author of Either/Or (2022) and The Idiot (2017), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Women’s Prize, as well as the essay collection The Possessed (2010), which began her ongoing conversation with world literature. A longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Batuman explores the intersections of politics, literature, and life. She is a 2026 Literature Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.

Merve Emre, Shapiro-Silverberg Professor at Wesleyan University, is the author of The Ferrante Letters (2020), The Personality Brokers (2018), and Paraliterary (2017). A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Emre examines literary institutions, reading practices, and the cultural work of criticism.

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7 pm | KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69

March 5

Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse 2026:
Belletristik

Who are the authors hoping to win the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2026? On this evening, the fiction nominees will take to our stage, read from their books, and discuss them with Jörg Plath (Deutschlandfunk Kultur) and Carsten Tesch (MDR):

Helene Bukowski: “Wer möchte nicht im Leben bleiben”, Claassen

Norbert Gstrein: “Im ersten Licht”, Hanser

Anja Kampmann: “Die Wut ist ein heller Stern”, Hanser

Katerina Poladjan: “Goldstrand”, S. Fischer

Elli Unruh: “Fische im Trüben”, TRANSIT

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

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February 24

“Nimm die Alpen weg” with Ralph Tharayil and Theresia Enzensberger

This evening at Chapters bookstore marks the release of the audiobook edition of Nimm die Alpen weg, written by Ralph Tharayil and produced by Kollo Media.The event will introduce the vision behind the audiobook, with a first preview of the English-language version read by Tharayil.

Tharayil will be in conversation with Theresia Enzensberger, discussing the book’s form, voice, and structure, why it lends itself so well to audio, and how the translation process shaped the final work.

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7 pm | Chapters, Wilsnacker Str. 60

February 24

Kristof Magnusson: Die Reise ans Ende der Geschichte

Book launch with Thorsten Dönges.

The longing for the ultimate adventure: most of us have probably felt that joyful excitement at least once. It is precisely this feeling that Kristof Magnusson conveys in his highly witty and darkly layered spy novel “Die Reise ans Ende der Geschichte” (The Journey to the End of History). At its center stands a rather conventional intelligence officer who draws an internationally celebrated poet into his final major espionage mission.

Playwright, translator, and novelist Kristof Magnusson will be reading from his fast-paced novel for the first time this evening, taking us into a period of profound historical upheaval.

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7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5

February 25

CANCELLED: The Sea Is There, But We Are Not: Literature from Palestine

As Goethe-Institut in Exile, our focus is on communities in exile and diaspora: their ruptures, languages, and aesthetic forms. Across Germany and Europe, a Palestinian exile community is growing — scattered across cities and countries, yet connected through shared experiences of loss, displacement, and new beginnings. We are here to listen to their stories and the literary strategies through which they are told.

This evening opens a space of resonance for three Palestinian authors who have recently arrived in Europe: Alaa Alqaisi, Asmaa Azaizeh and Ahmed Saleh. Their work emerges from the tension between shrinking living spaces, forced displacement, and profound societal upheaval. Their writing transforms these experiences into language that speaks to the present, treating literature as a practice of presence, preservation, and resistance.

How can one speak today of a “Palestinian literature” when, since 1948, it has emerged from dispossession, genocide, and disappearance, written from many places and yet about a single one? On this evening, the three Palestinian poets and authors read from their work and speak with literary critic Maha El Hissy about a literature whose body is torn apart, its limbs scattered between occupation and diaspora, and which persistently attempt stocon front, traverse, and resist this fragmented geography.

Curation of the evening by Abdalrahman Alqalaq. Musical intervention by Cham Saloum.

Note: This event has been canceled on short notice. In addition, the entire program of Goethe-Institut in Exile has been defunded. For the announcement of a new location we recommend watching the Instagram accounts of Abdalrahman Alqalaq (@aboud.alqalaq) and Maha El Hissy (@maha_elhissy)

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7 pm | ACUD, Veteranensraße 21

February 25

Jan Jekal: Paranoia in Hollywood. Wie die USA exilierte Künstler erst retteten und dann verfolgten. 1941–1953

Book launch moderated by Maik Brüggemeyer

Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, or Beverly Hills—these are the evocative names of the Californian haven where they found refuge: filmmakers and actors, writers and intellectuals who had to flee Nazi Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. It was a community of the exiled: Bertolt Brecht, Helene Weigel, Hanns Eisler, Billy Wilder and Vicki Baum, Fritz Lang and William Wyler, Thomas and Heinrich Mann. But soon the refugees found themselves under suspicion. One moment celebrated as nobly minded opponents of the Nazis, and the next moment their trash was getting searched by the FBI – the “red scare” and McCarthyism reduced freethinkers and left-leaning liberals to enemies of the State and communists.

This captivating and atmospheric account drawing on hitherto unpublished documents from archives in Los Angeles, reconstructs how the artists in exile fought back against authoritarian America using their wit, boldness; and creating many film classics. Yet it also traces their disillusion and despair in the face of a dark American period.

Jan Jekal, born in 1993 in Kiel, is a freelance journalist and book author writing for ZEIT, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and other magazines. He also hosts the pop culture podcast Rolling Stone Weekly.

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8 pm | Volksbühne, Linienstraße 227

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February 18

Tomer Gardi - “Liefern”

We see them every day. Whether in Delhi, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, or Berlin, they buzz through cities everywhere: food delivery drivers. With his protagonist Filmon, who fled from Eritrea to Tel Aviv and works there as a delivery driver, Tomer Gardi weaves these delivery stories into a global contemporary epic. “Delivery” (“Liefern”) tells the story of work and exploitation, of love, family, and the great longing for connection. This book is a celebration of storytelling as only Tomer Gardi can do it: profound and humorous, with political sensitivity and literary verve. The novel was written in collaboration with Anne Birkenhauer, who also translated the section “Mimesis” from Hebrew.

Tomer Gardi discusses his new novel with Anne Birkenhauer and Dheeraj Tyagi, MSc in Finance and Investment Science and delivery driver for Uber Eats. The discussion will be moderated by literary critic Insa Wilke.

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7 pm | Fahimi Bar, Skalitzerstr. 133

February 20

David Vajda - “Diamanten”

He calls them Mačak – tomcats – or his diamonds. Every now and then he also calls them idiots when they don’t understand his jokes. But no matter how many names their ex-Yugoslavian father gives them, no matter how much leg of lamb and wine he serves, he cannot fill the void left by their mother’s death. In his tragicomic debut, David Vajda tells the story of four adult siblings and their eccentric family scattered across the globe, between bohemianism and German upper middle class, between Berlin and Hollywood. They meet in Greece for their uncle’s opulent wedding, in Belgrade at Tito’s grave, in Provence with their esoteric aunt – but they are unable to mourn. Instead, they take refuge in sarcasm or the grotesque and indulge in lighthearted idleness. An extraordinary first novel: amusing, tender, serious.

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6 pm | Hansabibliothek, Altonaerstr. 15

February 20

What Emerges in Submersion? Experiences, Practices, and Politics from Below

Whether conceived as ocean, ground, soil, a metaphorical underworld, or a political figure of thought, the subsurface has become a key site in contemporary debates on ecological, social, and postcolonial conflicts and power asymmetries across the humanities and beyond. To engage the subterranean, however, is never merely thematic. It entails a conceptual and methodological movement – a practice of submersion that demands critical reflection on the conditions, technologies, aesthetics, and politics of knowledge production.

In The Extractive Zone (2017), Macarena Gómez-Barris introduced the notion of “submerged modes” to describe complex and resistant forms of life and knowledge. These social ecologies are embedded in specific material and media environments – shaped by industrial and digital-capitalist, neocolonial exploitation, dispossession, and surveillance – while simultaneously resisting them. Marked by intangible density and illegible heterogeneity, such perspectives evade an “extractive view” from above: modes of seeing that seek totalizing representation, scientific disciplining, and capitalist valorization. Instead, they call for methods and perspectives that are themselves submerged – a perception from below.

Building on Gómez-Barris’s concept and slightly shifting its terminology, Marie Sophie Beckmann, Petra Löffler, and Amelie Wedel explore the critical potential of sub(e)merging in dialogue with contemporary film and artworks (for example Verena Melgarejo Weinandt’s Invocation, Connecting in Darkness from 2022). What challenges does sub(e)merging pose to dominant modes of representation? How might going beneath the surface become a position from which to perceive, speak, and act differently? And in what ways does sub(e)merging destabilize the ground itself as a site of evidence and knowledge production?

The event will be held in German, but passages from English-language texts will be read aloud.

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7.30 pm | diffrakt, Crellestr. 22

February 21

Christa Wolf in our day

“Is life identical with time in its unavoidable but mysterious passage?” asked Christa Wolf in the introduction to her book One Day a Year. “While I write this sentence, time passes; simultaneously a tiny piece of my life comes into being—and passes away.”

Wolf certainly knew a thing or two about experiencing time—and about registering in literature the subjective experiences of history. Born in 1929 in Gorzów (then Prussian Landsberg), Wolf experienced the Third Reich as a child before becoming one of the foremost literary figures of the GDR, author of popular novels like “Kassandra”, “Divided Heaven”, and “The Quest for Christa T”. She was a committed socialist and a determined formal innovator; her work, always both political and personal, steered away from socialist realism into the more ambivalent (and more Modernist) domains of what she called “subjective authenticity.” She was critical of the regime—but never quite a dissident—and her refusal to disavow the socialist project, both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, has made her a controversial figure across Germany. (Many westerners, in particular, have argued for her proximity to the GDR state to be morally discrediting.) By now, Christa Wolf has fallen considerably out of style. Her Wikipedia page in English even quotes someone saying that authors like her “became irrelevant overnight” when the Wall came down.

But, despite her detractors, Wolf kept writing into her ninth decade, continuing to find new forms and refuse easy conformity. Every year from 1960 to her death in 2011, Wolf wrote a short prose piece describing her experiences of the 27th of September. These pieces—published in English as “One Day A Year”—are diaristic, essayistic, and novelistic in turns. Mundane details meet with intellectual analysis; the political situation is everywhere. The day, that most basic unit of time, brings the great sweep of history into our homes—and vice versa—both under communism then and under capitalism now.

At “Christa Wolf in Our Day”, we will return to Wolf’s literary project in our own period of moral and political crisis. Katy Derbyshire—acclaimed translator of “One Day A Year (2000-2011)”—will join book critic Alexander Wells for a discussion of Wolf’s life and (late) work moderated by the writer and novelist Paul Scraton. Then, after a drinks break, the evening will resume with a reading of short pieces submitted by the contemporary writers of Berlin. All are welcome, even Ulrich Greiner.

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8.30 pm | Lettrétage, Veteranenstr. 21

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