This year I went to two Berlinale films, both in the Forum (young experimental) section, both with a literary twist. One is the experimental pseudo-documentary Le Beau Danger by René Frölke which (quite literally) follows Romanian-Jewish writer Norman Manea in his public and private life. The other is a tragicomedy about and featuring French writer
Author: Aurelia Cojocaru
A conference on “Paths to Publishing”. Notes from in the middle of the journey
Have you heard about the latest statistics regarding the number of published writers in Iceland? According to them, every year one in ten Icelanders “gives birth” to a book. Imagine an editorial paradise. One wakes up and thinks “maybe I should write another novel”. A few intense nights and the manuscript can be ready. Oh,
Dj Spinoza spins at Bard College Berlin. Eugene Ostashevsky poetry reading
All my dreams of inventing a time machine and going back to witness the (in)famous Avant-Garde had long ago faded, when the Russian-American poet Eugene Ostashevsky came to Bard College Berlin. He came and opened his reading with a poem of the Russian “absurdist” Daniil Kharms (1905-1942), whom he has translated. “The four-legged crow”, which
Berlin Through the Eyes of… Matthias Hurst
Our series of Berlin-revelatory interviews with ECLA of Bard faculty and staff continues. This time our guide through Berlin is Prof. Matthias Hurst, who has been a member of the faculty at ECLA of Bard since 2003, teaching various courses in film, but also literature and philosophy. We took the chance to find out more
Fall cold/flu on campus. “Imaginarily Healthy”
“The decoration represents a rural setting, but nonetheless truly agreeable.” (Molière, Prologue to “Le Malade Imaginaire”) Only mid?September, and it was already here: in classrooms, dorms, the dining hall and the library, I heard the frequency of blessings-to-excuse-me grow. Supermarkets nearby increased their lemon, ginger, garlic and “Erkältungstee” (“Cold” Tea) supplies, and rumors had it
“Tipping is not a city in China”.The rise and fall of Sankt Oberholz, Eclerians’ Mecca
As you enter Sankt Oberholz, the most conspicuous café at Rosenthaler Platz, you notice, on all the walls, neatly printed menus. This is a commercial realm, you think. If you turn your head to the right, you see, under the huge menus, never-ending bar tables and, throning on the bar stools, a population of Mac
Who goes to the same book launch twice, on two different continents? Of Aleksandar Hemon’s The Book of My Lives and Other Demons
Dear Reader, this is supposed to be an article about a recent event that took place on September, 11, 2013, at the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin. It was a reading and discussion with Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon on his recently released nonfiction work entitled The Book of My Lives. Yet allow me to defer talking about
Corona: Selected Poems of Paul Celan. A reading and discussion with Susan H. Gillespie
What makes a good poetry event? This is merely a personal theory: when you recall a good poetry happening, your ability to convey factual information about it has to fail at some point. That is, you should be able to say: “these were the poems”, “these were the questions”, “these were the answers” and so