Consumption for a Better World: Utopia.de

Consumers have power. The Internet portal Utopia.de means to show how they can use this power so as, if not to save the world, then at least effectively to improve it by ?intelligent? consumption. In the meantime businesses have begun to sit up and take notice.... more more

GoetheInstitute

The Gypsies – a Romanian problem

Wednesday 19 December, 2007

The deportation of Romanians from Italy in the wake of a murder committed by an ethnic Roma has caused a stir in Romania. Yet whereas Romanians object to this discrimination abroad, they fail to see that at home the Roma are treated with nothing but hatred and disdain, and neither the Church nor the state is doing anything about it. By Mircea Cartarescu
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All eyes on the December children

Wednesday 5 December, 2007

Romania might have only 35 cinemas but it is having a profound effect on the world of film. Christian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" won the Palme d'Or at Cannes earlier this year and the European Film Prize in Berlin on Saturday. By Jan Schulz-Ojala
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Bucharest in a trance

Monday 12 November, 2007

Romanian literature is still a tiny niche in the German book market. Mircea Cartarescu's latest novel to be published here, "Die Wissenden," shows readers what they are missing. A visit to Bucharest to meet the man who is probably Romania's most famous author. By Jörg Plath
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A writer in the Cold War

Monday 30 April, 2007

The case of anti-Communist Romanian novelist Vintila Horia (1915-1992) - condemned by some as pro-fascist - illustrates the difficulty of establishing a literary canon after the end of totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. Now, some Romanian intellectuals want to rehabilitate his image. Can the man be viewed separately from his art? By Richard Wagner
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Romania's collective amnesia

Wednesday 17 January, 2006

On January 1, Romania became a member of the EU. While the country has managed to comply with most accession criteria, it has not been able to do away with Securitate, the invidious secret service of the former dictatorship. Romanian-German author Herta Müller takes a closer look.
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The spell of a tender eel

Wednesday 31 May, 2006

The prestigious Georg Büchner Prize for literature is to be awarded to poet Oscar Pastior. Martin Lüdke welcomes the long overdue decision to honour the work of a mild mannered word wizard.
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