Staged Reading
5/21/12
7:30pm
Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building
5 East 3rd Street/Bowery
New York, NY 10003
In English
Free admission
Tel.: +1 (212) 439-8700

Theater director Daniel Brunet brings young German playwright Dea Loher’s Bluebeard - Hope of Women to Wyoming Building for a staged reading on Monday, May 21. Brunet is more than familiar with Loher’s work, having been awarded a 2010 PEN Translation Grant for his translation of The Last Fire, and also having translated Innocence (Unschuld), which was given a staged reading last year at the Goethe-Institut New York.

Dea Lohers Blaubart - Hoffnung der Frauen uses the classic tale of the man who murders the women he loves to comment ironically on modern women's concept of "total" love. The cast features Christen Clifford*, Melissa Hurst*, Sheila Joon*, Johanna McKeon, Julia Moss*, Rebecca Nelson*, Diana Ruppe* and Jesse Paul Wilson (*Actors' Equity Association members).

Award-winning playwright Dea Loher, born in Bavaria in 1964, is one of Germany’s most widely produced contemporary playwrights. Her nearly 20 plays have been awarded virtually every major award in the German-speaking theater world and have been translated into 28 different languages. Loher lives in Berlin.

Performance
05/17 - 5-27/2012
Th – Su 8:00pm
Sat 8:00pm & 10:00pm
Access Theater
380 Broadway/White St.
New York, NY 10013
Tel.: +1 (212) 966-1047
Tickets

Georg Büchner 's classic, ever-modern drama, Woyzeck, receives a new production by Aporia Theater, founded by Columbia University alumni in 2007. Aporia devotes itself to compelling original work and Woyzeck is presented here in a new translation by Artistic Director Sarah Wansley, with original music by David Marenberg. The play previews on May 17, opening on May 18.

Translator/director Wansley has stated: “With this new translation, I created a Woyzeck that is accessible to a contemporary American audience, yet remains grounded in the circumstances of its original time and place. To this end, we are using an English text with songs in both English and German...I want the audience to experience the strangeness of the original German text.” The cast features Lydia Blaisdell, Ugo Chukwu, Alexander Cook, Greg Engbrecht, Eloïse Eonnet, Graham Halstead, Grant Harrison, Rosa Gilmore, Miles Jacoby and Joseph Rende.

Reading
05/15/2012
6:30-9:00pm
Library of Congress
Montpelier Rm, 6th Flr, James Madison Bldg.
101 Independence Ave. SE
Washington, DC, 20540
English and German
Free and open to the public
tel.: +1 (202) 289-1200

Herta Müller continues her US tour with a stop at the Library of Congess in DC, for an evening introduced by James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress. Accompanying her is Philip Boehm, whose translations of her work include, most recently, The Hunger Angel. This latest novel is the English-language version of Atemschaukel, which appeared a few months before Müller was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Müller and Boehm will read from the novel, followed by a discussion moderated by Peter C. Pfeiffer, Chair of the Department of German at Georgetown University. The event, organized by the Goethe-Institut Washington DC and the LOC, will be co-hosted by the European Division and the Poetry and Literature Center of the Library of Congress.

In connection with Herta Müller's visit to Washington, Die letzten Tage der Ceausescus, a film on Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, whose regime is featured largely in Müller's work, will be screened on May 14. Details may be found on the Goethe-Institut Washington site.

05/11/12
7:00pm
Goethe-Institut Boston
170 Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02116
In German, with English translation provided
Admission free
Tel.: +1 (617) 262-6050

After a stopover in Chicago, Herta Müller and her translator Philip Boehm travel to Massachusetts for two events in Boston. On Friday, Müller will read from Atemschaukel (The Hunger Angel) at the Goethe-Institut Boston, followed by a discussion moderated by Anca Luca Holden, Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Mount Holyoke College.

On Saturday, Müller will hold a lecture titled When We Don’t Speak, We Become Unbearable, And When We Do, We Make Fools of Ourselves. Can Literature Bear Witness? at Boston University Law School and then engage in a conversation with Askold Melnyczuk and William Pierce of the literary journal AGNI.

Both events are free and open to the public with receptions to follow.

Reading
05/11/12
6:30pm
Deutsches Haus at NYU
42 Washington Mews
New York, NY 10003
Free w/RSVP

Arne Bellstorf's graphic novel, Baby's in Black, features Stu Sutcliffe, the "fifth Beatle" during the moptops' early days in Hamburg, and Astrid Kirchherr, the girl for whom he left the Beatles. At Deutsches Haus NYU, the artist talks about his research, his creative process, and the story behind Baby’s in Black.

Arne Bellstorf was born in Germany in 1979. Since 2006 he has published a monthly comic page for the German daily, Der Tagesspiegel. In addition to his work as a comic artist, he also co-edits the annual Orang comic magazine with fellow graphic novelist Sascha Hommer. In 2004 the two founded Kiki Post, an indie house for comics. Arne Bellstorf lives in Hamburg, Germany.

Reading and Talk
05/09/12
6:00 pm
Poetry Foundation
61 West Superior Street
Chicago, IL 60654
In German and English
Tel.: +1 (312) 787-7070
Free, but RSVP required.
http://hertamuller.eventbrite.com/

After tonight's discussion with Claire Messud at the 92nd Street Y, the next stop on Herta Müller's US tour will be Chicago. Next Wednesday, she will treat the audience at the Poetry Foundation to a reading of some collage poetry as well as excerpts from her novel The Hunger Angel (Atemschaukel). She will be joined by translator, Philip Boehm, who not only translated Atemschaukel, but also the poetry she selected for this reading.

Film
05/09/12 - 05/15/12
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
New York, NY 10014
Tel.: +1 (212) 727-8110

It's not often that we point our readers to films here, but a new work on a great contemporary German writer warrants an exception. W.G. Sebald, who died prematurely in a car accident at the end of 2001, created some of the most stunning works to come out of the German-speaking world in recent years. Now Grant Gee has released Patience (After Sebald), a film essay on "landscape, art, history, life and loss", which looks at Sebald's body of literature and its influence.

Born in Allgau, Germany in 1944, W.G. Sebald studied in Germany, Switzerland and the UK, settling in the UK in 1970. With the publication of The Emigrants in 1992, Sebald became an international author publishing, among other titles, The Rings of Saturn, and Austerlitz, and his work continues to exert an influence on artists, writers and filmmakers.

Director Grant Gee received the Grierson Award for Joy Division and directed the Radiohead documentary, Meeting People is Easy. Patience, shown at the 2011 New York Film Festival, is structured around a walk through quintessential Sebald territory, coastal East Anglia, which he portrayed in The Rings of Saturn. The film features Adam Philips, Robert Macfarlane, Rick Moody and Tacita Dean. Novelist Moody, a friend of Sebald, will introduce Patience at Film Forum on Wednesday, May 9, at 8:20pm. On May 11, at 8:20pm, Lynne Sharon Schwartz will do the introduction.

Conversation/Reading
05/04/2012
92nd Street Y
Unterberg Poetry Center
1395 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY
Tickets: Call +1 (866) 811-4111 or visit ovationtix.com

Nobel Laureate Herta Müller is interviewed by acclaimed novelist Claire Messud in this talk and reading at the 92nd St. Y, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. Müller's work is defined by its focus on political repression and displacement, and her latest novel, Atemschaukel, just translated by Philip Boehm as The Hunger Angel, will be available for purchase.

For Current Writing readers, use the coupon code "Literature" at check-out for a discount when ordering tickets.

Works by Herta Müller in German and English are available for loan at the Goethe-Institut New York Library.

Reading
05/03/12
3:00pm
Deutsches Haus at NYU
42 Washington Mews
New York, NY 10003
Free w/RSVP

Romanian-born German-language author and Nobel Prize Laureate Herta Müller makes a rare visit to New York for two appearances at the 2012 PEN World Voices Festival. On May 3, she appears at Deutsches Haus NYU to deliver in German a speech she gave before the Swedish Academy, entitled Wenn wir schweigen, werden wir unangenehm - wenn wir reden, werden wir lächerlich. Kann Literatur Zeugnis ablegen?

The English version of the speech, When We Don't Speak, We Become Unbearable, and When We Do, We Make Fools of Ourselves. Can Literature Bear Witness?, translated by Philip Boehm, will be projected simultaneously.

The Hunger Angel, Philip Boehm's just-published translation of Herta Müller's most recent novel, Atemschaukel, will be available for purchase. The Goethe-Institut Library holds a number of books by Müller in both German and English.

Dramatic Reading
05/01/12
6:00pm
Center for Jewish History
Forchheimer Auditorium
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
In English
Reception to follow

Young author and current DAAD Chair in Contemporary Poetics at NYU Daniel Kehlmann has followed up on the worldwide success of his novels with his first play, Geister in Princeton, which had its premiere at the Salzburger Festspiele last year. Ghosts in Princeton, in a translation by Carol Brown Janeway - who translated his novels Measuring the World, Me and Kaminski and Fame for Pantheon Books - will be presented at the Center for Jewish History next week as a staged reading.

This touching play tells the story of Viennese mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978), who by the age of 24 had revolutionized the field of mathematics. After the Nazis took over Austria in 1938, Gödel and his wife Adele immigrated to Princeton, where he joined his good friend Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The reading will be presented with some minimal staging elements to give the audience an impression of the play’s concept of space and time, which is structured around Gödel’s mathematical proofs for the possibility of time travel. Gödel goes back in time - both observing and reliving significant moments in his life - but beyond the Dickensian structure he also co-exists and interacts with himself as a child.

Kehlmann will be on hand to introduce the play.

Directed by Robert Lyons. With Jack Wetherall, Emily Zacharias, Ethan Haberfield, Harry Peerce, Mike Smith Rivera, Vitus Wieser and Jonathan C. Kaplan.

Leo Baeck Institute and Goethe-Institut New York are extremely grateful to Deutsche Telekom for its support of this program. Special thanks also to Ambassador Peter Wittig and Huberta von Voss Wittig.

Conversation
04/26/12
6:30pm
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022
Tel.: +1 (212) 319-5300
Reservation requested

In "Drawing the Line Between High and Low Art", Austrian graphic artist Nicolas Mahler will discuss his latest book in translation: Angelman: Fallen Angel, the tragicomic story of a hapless superhero. In addition, Mahler's graphic version of Austrian author Thomas Bernhard's 1985 satirical novel, Old Masters: A Comedy, has just been released. Talking with JM Stim, the cartoonist will discuss his work, which ranges from high to low art, exploring how a graphic novel adaptation of a literary author might cast new light on the original work.

Mahler will also make an appearance at this year's MoCCA Fest, to be held on April 28 and 29 at The Lexington Avenue Armory.

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, with its £10,000 award that is split equally between author and translator, has announced its shortlist. The group of five candidate includes Judith Hermann's novel, Alice, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo and published by The Clerkenwell Press.

The winning title will be announced on May 14. This year's other shortlisted titles, translated from the Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian and Chinese, are Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld, From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani, and Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke.

Among the shortlist of nominees for the Best Translated Book Award for poetry are two small press editions by German authors. Anja Utler's münden — entzüngeln, for which Utler was awarded the Leonce-und-Lena Prize for Poetry, has been translated by Kurt Beal for Burning Deck as engulf -- enkindle.

Also nominated is Uljana Wolf's falsche freunde, in a translation by Susan Bernofsky titled False Friends and published by Ugly Duckling Press.

The fiction and poetry winners of the Best Translated Book Award will be announced on Friday, May 4, at 6:00pm, at McNally Jackson Books in SoHo as part of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Each winning author and translator will receive a $5,000 cash prize.

We are very pleased to announce that the Spring 2012 issue of New Books in German is now available online. This marks the 31st edition of the publication dedicated to introducing the best of contemporary literature from Austria, Germany and Switzerland. With a special focus on Berlin, this issue introduces NBG's new 'Literary Capital' series, with issues devoted to Vienna and Zurich to follow. Click through for reviews of fiction, short stories, crime & thrillers, debuts, non-fiction, and children & young adults' titles!

Reading
04/12/12
7:00pm
Deutsches Haus Columbia University
420 W. 116th St. (betw. Amsterdam & Morningside)
New York, NY 10027
Tel: (212) 854-3202
Free

Three graduate students in Columbia University's School of Arts Writing Program and three student writers at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig (DLL) present Word for Word / Wort für Wort, the culmination of a six-month writing/translation collaboration.

Word for Word / Wort für Wort is a limited-edition collection of facing-page translations. The book was presented by the six writers at the Leipzig Book Fair, and now will be presented in New York at this event co-presented by Columbia’s School of the Arts and Deutsches Haus. The six writers, Ariell Cacciola, Joshua Edwin and Katherine Sanders from Columbia University, and Bettina Suleiman, Dagmara Kraus, and Jörn Dege from the University of Leipzig’s DLL, will read their work in German and English, followed by a Q&A session with the audience and a reception celebrating the launch of the book.

Those interesting in having a look at the book in person are encouraged to borrow a copy from our Library.