Goethe-Institut New York | Current Writing Blog

Symposium
02/26/12
3:00pm
Goethe-Institut Chicago
150 N. Michigan Ave., Ste. 200
Chicago, IL 60601
Tel.: + 1 (312) 263-0472
English
Donation, RSVP requested

This symposium honoring Swiss writer Robert Walser, — titled "We Don't Need to See Anything Out of the Ordinary. We Already See So Much" — features Thomas Schütte, Jörg Kreienbrock, Susan Bernofsky, Reto Sorg and Michal Pawel Markowski. Since December 2011, Chicago's Donald Young Gallery has exhibited works by various artists on the theme of Robert Walser's Microscripts and the symposium is held on the occasion of artist Schütte's visit to the city.

Thomas Schütte's work is exhibited widely throughout the world and included in top museum collections. In 2005, he received the Golden Lion Award at the 51st Venice Biennale. Schütte has had a long standing interest in Walser's writings and for the symposium will pose the question of why Walser's exquisite and extensive writings could not sustain his existence. He is joined by Jörg Kreienbrock of Northwestern University, Walser translator Susan Bernofsky, Reto Sorg, director of the Robert Walser-Center in Bern, Switzerland, and Michal Pawel Markowski, head of the Slavic Department at UIC.

Novelist, essayist, children's book author and translator Michael Stavarič is the recipient of this year's Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preis, an award presented to a non-German-born author who writes in German. Stavarič, born in 1972 in Brno (today the Czech Republic), has lived in Austria for three decades. His most recent novel is Brenntage, published by C. H. Beck.

The prize, which comes with a 15,000 Euro purse, will be awarded on March 1 in the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in the Residenz München.

Reading
02/22/12
7:00pm
Center for Fiction
17 E. 47th St. (between Fifth and Madison Ave.)
New York, NY 10017
Tel.: +1 (212) 755-6710
In English
Free, RSVP requested

In celebration of New York Review Books' new translation by Philip Boehm of Gregor Von Rezzori's An Ermine in Czernopol, the Center for Fiction hosts a reading with Deborah Eisenberg and Wallace Shawn.

First published in 1958 as Ein Hermelin in Tschernopol. Ein maghrebinischer Roman, Gregor von Rezzori's novel takes place just after World War I and is the tragicomic tale of Tildy, a former officer of the now-defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, who is determined to defend the virtue of his adulterous sister-in-law at all costs.

Playwright, theater director and translator Philip Boehm has received awards from the American Translators Association, the NEA, PEN America, and the Mexican-American Fund for Culture. He is currently at work on a translation of Herta Müller’s Atemschaukel, to be published in April by Metropolitan Books as The Hunger Angel.

You will find a copy of An Ermine in Czernopol in the collection of the Goethe-Institut Library.

Reading
02/14/12
6:00pm
Goethe-Institut Chicago
150 N Michigan Ave., Suite 200
Chicago, IL
In German and English
Free
RSVP with Denise Eiserman
or call +1 (312) 263-0472

Next on the itinerary after New York for the Festival Neue Literatur authors is Literaturlenz, an evening of readings and discussion with Larissa Boehning (Germany), Monica Cantieni (Switzerland), and Linda Stift (Austria), moderated by Susan Harris, editorial director of Words Without Borders.

Literaturlenz writers will also visit three universities in the area: the University of Illinois at Chicago (February 15), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (February 16), and DePaul University (February 17), for readings with German students and faculty.

Larissa Boehning, born in 1971, will read from her novel Das Glück der Zikaden [The song of the cicadas]. Monica Cantieni, will read from her 2011 novel, Grünschnabel [Greenhorn], now slated for translation into English, and Linda Stift reads from her novel, Kein einziger Tag [Not a single day]. Sample translations from these works may be found at the Festival Neue Literatur site.

Readings
02/12/12
6:00pm
McNally Jackson Books
52 Prince St.
New York, NY 10012
tel.: +1 (212) 274-1160
English
Free

US author Francisco Goldman joins Monica Cantieni (Switzerland), Larissa Boehning (Germany) and Erwin Uhrmann (Austria) for the final event of this year's Festival Neue Literatur, "Writing on the Margins: Literature between Cultures", moderated by literary critic Liesl Schillinger (pictured here), whose most recent translation from the German, Every Day, Every Hour, by Natasa Dragnic, will be published in May by Viking.

As in the United States, the literary scene in Europe is abuzz with works about characters who move between different cultural and ethnic worlds. The group of authors gathered here explore the sometimes explosive conditions that arise when cultures intersect and sometimes clash.

Conversation/Reading
02/11/12
6:00-8:00pm
powerHouse Arena (corner of Water & Main St.)
37 Main St.
Brooklyn, NY
Tel.: +1 (718) 666-3049
In English
Free and open to the public

Festival Neue Literature travels to DUMBO Saturday night to continue its conversations and readings with a powerHouse Arena audience. German-language authors Catalin Dorian Florescu (winner of the 2011 Swiss Book Prize), Inka Parei (2003 Bachmann Prize-winner) and Linda Stift (Bachmann Prize nominee) join US author Chris Adrian (The Great Night) for "Reinventing the Past". Festival curator Susan Bernofsky leads a conversation that explores the wildly divergent ways in which the past can be put to work in the name of storytelling.

Workshop
02/10/12
1:00-4:30pm
Deutsches Haus at Columbia University
420 W. 116th Street at Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Tel: +1 (212) 854-3202
In German and English
Free and open to the public

The 2012 Festival Neue Literatur starts off at full-tilt this Friday, with "How German Is It?", two workshops featuring the six German, Austrian and Swiss authors of the Festival in conversation with Columbia students. Professor of German Mark Anderson will give the introductory remarks at 1pm, followed by a discussion of the family novel, pairing Columbia students with authors Larissa Boehning, Catalin Dorian Florescu and Monica Cantieni . After a short coffee break, the second workshop, from 3:00 to 4:30pm, covers Vergangenheitsversuche, or "Trying Out the Past", with authors Inka Parei, Erwin Uhrmann and Linda Stift speaking with students.

Deutsches Haus at Columbia University is located just east of Amsterdam Avenue. By subway take the 1/B/C trains to 116th Street.