From the Feuilletons

Saturday 3 - Friday 9 January, 2009

Daniel Barenboim explains why the West Eastern Divan Orchestra will continue to play while Gaza burns. Abdelwahab Meddeb is unsparing in his criticism of both Israelis and Palestinians. On the death of Danish poet Inger Christensen, the FAZ remembers her ingenious way with the alphabet and the Fibonacci sequence. Harald Weltzer rallies to protect the future from those who would throw cash at the credit crunch. Film director Christian Petzold reflects on places of longing in Brandenburg. And theatre director Dimiter Gotscheff remembers how Heiner Müller made him walk into a tree.

Magazine Roundup

Monday 22 December, 2008

The era of the book is over, publisher's editor Tom Engelhardt declares in The Nation. In the New Statesman Jonathan Derbyshire turns his thoughts to Weltliteratur since Goethe. In Polityka, Adam Michnik praises the Communists for passing their exams in Polish patriotism. Difficulty as a virtue has abandoned the realm of literature to be embraced by the computer game, John Lanchester writes in the London Review of Books. Standpoint takes Germany to task for its love of Russia. The New York Times tells the story of Mexico's victorious battle against the "culture of poverty". The Economist honours H.M., the man without memories.

Turkey in Frankfurt

Monday 22 December, 2008

This year Turkey was the guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We introduce the books that attracted the most critical attention.

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 13 - Friday 18 December, 2008

Sonja Margolina watches Stalin's halo glowing ever brighter in Russia. Ulf Erdmann Ziegler looks into a dark future under the light of another EU norm. The FAZ is not all too comfortable with the plans for the "House of European History" either. The ageing Japanese are keeping their newspaper industry alive and kicking. Richard Swartz visits Europe's last divided city. And thousands of Turks are apologising online to the Armenians, but PM Erdogan is not among them.

Magazine Roundup

Tuesday 16 December, 2008

In Outlook India Arundhati Roy analyses the nature of terrorism. In the London Review of Books, Tariq Ali describes an "honour killing" in his own family. In the Observator Cultural, the writer Mircea Horia Simionescu describes how useful it is to be the victim of infidelity. Elet es Irodalom examines the detrimental influence of the primitive Janos Kadar. In Gazeta Wyborcza Victor Erofeev wishes the credit crunch would hurt Russia more, so that it would be forced to change. In Lettre International Peter Nadas describes the legacy of simulation which had the Eastern Bloc in its grip. The New York Review of Books publishes the Chinese "Charter 2008".

Good readers are cannibals

Monday 15 December, 2008

Kurt Flasch's book "Kampfplätze der Philosophie" strides across the battlefields of philosophy from Augustine to Voltaire. After a weekend spent scribbling furiously in its margins, Arno Widmann was enlightened, exhilarated and hungry for more.

Life after bankruptcy

Wednesday 26 November, 2008

The age of privatisation is over. Politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order. (Photo: Wolfram Huke)

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"I am the eternal altar boy"

Monday 17 November, 2008

This year's prestigious Büchner Prize went to Austrian writer Josef Winkler. He talks to Paul Jandl about dung heaps, patriarchs, the fear of speechlessness and the elegance of John Paul II's coffin. Photo © Jerry Bauer / SV

In Moscow traffic with Walter Benjamin

Monday 11 November, 2008

Dragan Klaic was in Moscow to run a theatre workshop. He was overwhelmed by the sense of impending financial disaster and nearly missed his plane home.

It's time Kundera talked

Friday 07 November, 2008

A dementi is not enough. Milan Kundera should come out with his version of the story, because Iva Militka and Miroslav Dvoracek deserve the truth. By Anja Seeliger

"Inflation will pay!"

Thursday 23 October, 2008

Iceland was determined to be a globalisation winner at any price. German-Icelandic writer Kristof Magnusson looks into the culture and history of this mini-state to find out how it became buried in debt.

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Between the hammer and the anvil

Wednesday 22 October, 2008

Why Austria's far-right under Heinz-Christian Strache and the late Jörg Haider are celebrating their election triumph. By Doron Rabinovici

Turkey's poisoned pens

Thursday 9 October, 2008

Does participation at the Frankfurt Book Fair mean making propaganda for the AKP? In Turkey, this year's guest country at the Book Fair, writers have been feuding over this issue for months. Some of them have even called for a boycott. This time, however, it's more than just a Kemalist-Islamist divide. By Constanze Letsch

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"Local wars ahead"

Thursday 18 September, 2008

Russian author Arkady Babchenko rose to international fame with the remorseless description of the Chechen conflict in his autobiographical novel "The Colour of War". Babchenko was also the millitary correspondent for the Novaya Gazeta during the recent Russian military operation in South Ossetia. Jörg Plath met up with him in Berlin.

Magic and guilt

Thursday 4 September, 2008

The legendary German poets, Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, met and fell in love in Vienna 1948. Their electric and torturous correspondence, which continued until 1961, has now been collected in book form for the first time. Ina Hartwig on what was probably the most complicated love story in post-war Germany.

Who are the citizens of Europe?

Monday 18 August, 2008

Philosopher Jürgen Habermas called for a pan-European referendum in the wake of the Irish 'No'. He overestimates the wisdom of the masses and underestimates what has been achieved up to now, counters Alfred Grosser.

In the burning house

Monday 21 July, 2008

The dead body of Russian artist Anna Alchuk was pulled out of the river Spree in April this year. She and her husband, philosopher Michail Ryklin, had moved to Berlin in November 2007 after life in Russia became intolerable as a direct consequence of Alchuk's participation in the exhibition "Caution: Religion!". Michail Ryklin looks to his wife's tormented diary entries to help him approximate the causes of her death.

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Most recently commented on

Life after bankruptcy (05/12/2008)
Why Ukraine has no place in the EU (22/11/2008)
"Inflation will pay!" (27/10/2008)

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