This April, the London Book Fair (LBF) opened its doors for the second year in a row in Olympia-Kensington after experiments in the Docklands and other places in London. According to the fair’s website, the grounds saw 1,500 exhibitors and 25,000 fairgoers which made it quite an event to attend. […] Read more
Today, Warsaw Book Fair opened its doors to “all book lovers” as well as 800 exhibitors from 24 countries. The book fair takes place in a rather unconventional location: the National Stadium (where Germany lost against Italy in 2012). More about Warsaw Book Fair can be found on the official […] Read more
This year’s Man Booker International Prize went to Han Kang’s novel “The Vegetarian”, translated by Deborah Smith. While I haven’t read the novel, yet, I had the pleasure of meeting Deborah Smith at this year’s London Book Fair. I was very impressed by her comments on a panel on translations […] Read more
London 1922. Historical crime fiction. Genteel Mrs Wray and her bored daughter Frances take in lodgers, Lilian and Leonard Barber, because they can no longer manage the upkeep of their London villa without additional financial income. Their routine is disturbed but Frances, who had an affair with a female friend […] Read more
In her review article, Margarete Zimmermann explains the fascinating role of the first French bookshop in early-20th-century Berlin. She follows the fate of the shop’s founder, Françoise Frenkel, who had to flee Nazi persecution and whose memoirs have recently been rediscovered and published in a new edition. Die erste französische […] Read more
Libraries in the UK have long been under threat, but during the last 5 years of Conservative cuts, the pressure on libraries has increased so much that several hundreds have been closed and a quarter of staff have been laid off. Protests range far and wide – from famous writers […] Read more
We congratulate Jackie Kay, who was just named Scotland’s new Makar, i.e. national poet. And apparently we’re not the only ones to think this was a great choice: For more information, see e.g. the Guardian’s piece about the appointment: link Read more
In his review article, Jürgen Enkemann not only comments on the similarities and differences between literary and filmic practice, and how they relate to the literary field. He also dissects Michael Grandage’s film Genius and its apparent failure to translate literary concerns – such as the importance of the editor […] Read more
There are 31 wolf packs in Germany. There are none in the UK. However, Sarah Hall introduces wolves in her latest novel, The Wolf Border, which are first kept in a closed wolf reserve in the Lake District, and then accidentally-on-purpose released into Scotland, which in the novel has just […] Read more
During the Berlin Literature Seminar on “Brit Crime – A New Golden Age of Crime Writing?”, organized jointly by the British Council and the Centre for British Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Sandra van Lente conducted a short interview with Helga Frese-Resch, editor at the independent German publishing house Kiepenheuer & Witsch. […] Read more
