‘Literature’ Archives
Miron Zownir: A Radical Man
Natalie Holmes chats to photographer, film-maker, author and all-round "radical man" Miron Zownir... Having taken up photography during the peak of the punk phenomenon in the late 70s, German photographer Miron Zownir emigrated to the USA in 1980, living in New York, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. It was in New York that Zownir made his name as a moody, expressionistic and unflinching photographer, capturing the darker fringes of society in the style of Diane Arbus or Weegee. In spite [...]
Berlin – The Chicago of Europe
An extract of an article by Mark Twain, originally published in the Chicago Tribune in 1892... Berlin is the European Chicago. The two cities have about the same population--say a million and a half. I cannot speak in exact terms, because I only know what Chicago's population was week before last; but at that time it was about a million and a half. Fifteen years ago Berlin and Chicago were large cities, of course, but neither of them was the giant it now is. But now the parallels fail. [...]
Berlin’s Bunkers
Swedish architect and author Fredrik Torisson profiles Berlin's bunkers... Berlin is full of bunkers. Some are more visible than others and some have even become topography rather than buildings. Obsolete bunkers are relics that tend to remain standing regardless of circumstance; being difficult to demolish is as much a part of their nature as their ability to be camouflaged is, which makes them a series of half-invisible and more or less eternal relics. As a building typology, [...]
Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin: A Walking Tour
“For Christopher, Berlin meant boys,” goes a memorable line in Christopher Isherwood’s memoir. It is the starting point for Brendan Nash’s walking tour of the area around Nollendorfplatz in Schöneberg, one of Berlin’s oldest gay neighborhoods. Isherwood, whose portrayal of Berlin between the late 1920s and early 1930s gave us the images many of us still associate with this period, lived here during his third visit to the city. While still a student in Cambridge, Isherwood and [...]
Waxing Poetic: Berlin’s Live Lit Scene
Looking for lit events in Berlin? Marian Ryan outlines the best of the city's regular shindigs, salons and slams... For literature geeks in Berlin looking to sample the local scene, there’s no shortage of salons, readings, talks and slams. In English or German, whether at big institutions like the embassies and the American Academy, the traditional, clubby Literaturhäuser or intimate Lesebühnen, options are ample. That’s not even counting the hordes of festivals with a literary [...]
Another Country
Marian Ryan profiles one of Berlin's most characterful bookshops... In November 2010, one of the world’s best-known travel-guide brands, Lonely Planet, named Berlin’s Another Country among the top ten bookshops in the world. The quirky, thirteen-year-old Kreuzberg institution took its place at number six, alongside legends like Paris’s adored Shakespeare & Company and San Francisco’s iconic City Lights. Not a few jaws dropped among the Berlin literati. “None of the other [...]
Slow-style Xmas shopping guide 2011
Natalie Holmes rounds up a selection of Berlin shops with a local, sustainable, eco and fair trade twist... E.M. Forster once described Christmas as a time when “vulgarity reigns”. Indeed, a century later, cynics are quick to dismiss the festive season as little more than a thinly veiled ploy to ramp up consumerism to ever-giddier heights. Still, for the optimists among us, the act of giving and spirit of goodwill -- however clumsily expressed -- can still be a way to celebrate the [...]
Berlin’s Lesbische Frauen
Brendan Nash explores Berlin's Weimar-era lesbian scene... In 1928, Ruth Margarete Roellig wrote a guide book for visitors to Berlin. But this wasn't just any run-of-the-mill guidebook. This was "Berlin's Lesbische Frauen" a comprehensive guide to the hottest and most happening lesbian bars and clubs the city had to offer. With an estimated 85,000 living in the city, Berlin was the lesbian capital of the world, and visitors were flocking in to experience all the city had to offer, and [...]
Readux: Reading in Berlin
Adrian Pasen chats to Amanda DeMarco, founder of German literature portal Readux... For English-speaking literary fiends in Berlin, there’s no denying the growing number of English-language outlets, events, and emerging writers to satisfy even the most particular of tastes. It’s comforting and insular, but precludes full integration into the local German culture, for whom literature has always played such a vibrant and integral role. A wealth of fantastic German and international [...]
SAND journal
Tam Eastley chats to Becky Crook, co-founder of Berlin literary journal, SAND... California native Becky Crook moved to Berlin from Seattle in October 2008. With a background in Linguistics, European Studies, and Theology, and a first-time novelist herself, she was disappointed to discover upon arriving in Berlin that the city's previous literary magazine, Bordercrossings, had shut down. In response, she teamed up with co-founder Jason Andrews to create SAND, Berlin's English Literary [...]
