Could the Putin system [already the subject of ilb 2005] exist without propaganda and fear? Sergei Lebedev’s novel »Untraceable« tells of wasp stings that kill secret agents and the hunt for a deadly chemist. We talk with writer Boris Akunin, who enjoys great popularity in Russia for his crime novels
Greens Mutter wünscht sich für ihre Tochter nichts sehnlicher als einen Mann, mit dem sie eine Familie gründen kann. Doch Green lebt mit einer Frau zusammen. Als sie aus finanziellen Gründen gezwungen ist, wieder bei ihrer Mutter einzuziehen, führt kein Weg an einer Konfrontation vorbei. Stures Festhalten an Traditionen auf
The fate of a girl who suffers from her parents’ conflicts is at the center of the family novel by Pilar Quintana, »one of the most powerful new voices from Latin America« [DLF Kultur]. The girl searches for a path to freedom and a different life in the tension between
Based on Benjamin and Helen Rask, a glamorous couple in 1920s New York – he a financial baron, she the daughter of an aristocratic family – the novel explores the power of money. »…the uniquely brilliant way in which Diaz tells that story, as meticulously researched as it is narratively
Als Krishan erfährt, dass die Haushälterin seiner Großmutter unter ungeklärten Umständen gestorben ist, reist der junge Mann zur Beerdigung in den vom Bürgerkrieg gezeichneten Norden Sri Lankas. Anuk Arudpragasam, »einer der herausragendsten Köpfe seiner Generation« [Financial Times], stand mit dem Roman, einer bewegenden Reflexion über die Geschichte des Landes und
Every year, five prize winners of the Berliner Festspiele’s Treffen Junger Autor:innen are invited to the »Nahaufnahme« [close-up], this year Rania Daoudi, Idil Korkut, Cora Grohmann, Diana Röthlinger und Sophie Schollek. The aim is to encourage the young authors in their writing and support their path to a professional writing
»Lamento«, der jüngste Roman der Universalkünstlerin Madame Nielsen, erzählt von einer leidenschaftlichen und letztlich schmerzlichen Beziehung zwischen einer Schriftstellerin und einem Theatermacher sowie von der Unmöglichkeit, den Zauber der Verliebtheit mit dem Alltag in Einklang zu bringen. »Madame Nielsen seziert die Natur der Liebe und der Verliebtheit, wobei die Katastrophe
Every Saturday [sábado] is followed by a Sunday [domingo]. In this case, there are 25 years in between. Federico is 18 when he goes through a tumultuous Saturday night with a friend and a waitress that he later barely remembers. At 43, he attends a Sunday school party for his
Josef Stalin died on March 5, 1953. The personality cult cultivated around him reached its climax at the funeral: during the funeral ceremonies, scheduled for four days, there was mass panic in the crowded streets of Moscow and hundreds were trampled to death. The film assembles documentary footage from the
Winner of the 2020 International Literary Award, the »Balzac of Iran« [Berliner Zeitung] tells the love story between the Iranian ambassador to Egypt and a Jewish woman who converted to Islam in Cairo at the end of the 1940s. He also vividly depicts the historical situation – the emerging Cold
What does it mean to speak of the »post-Soviet«? And how does a young generation escape the echoes of previous histories? The works of Yevgenia Belorusets, a multidisciplinary and collective writer, take their own and other people’s language as the starting point for a reflection on their own way of
Residents of Berlin from Thailand, Korea, China, Taiwan, India, Cambodia, and Vietnam help shape the city’s diverse cultural life and will share what it feels like to live in Germany with a different background. Themes and texts of Asian Berlin are presented by Ma Thida, Burmese surgeon, writer, and president
