Programme of the 9th international literature festival berlin 2009

Wed, 16.09. at 4 pm, JVA Moabit
Kaleidoscope_Literature Behind Bars
Robert Littell (USA): The Stalin Epigram
Reading and disscussion with long-term prison inmates.
PRESENTER: Martin Jankowski
Closed Event
Wed, 16.09. at 7 pm, Babylon
Kaleidoscope
Edward St Aubyn (Great Britain)
PRESENTER: Gabriele von Arnim, SPEAKER: Frank Arnold
Mother's Milk, the cuttingly humorous family portrait written by London native Edward St Aubyn,
was short-listed for the Booker Prize, won the Prix Femina as well as the Southbank Award and
brought the author international success. No doubt: For anyone who has drunk this mother's milk,
the term “postpartum depression” now has a whole new meaning!
Wed, 16.09. at 7 pm, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin
Focus Arab World - Literatures of the World
Repression and War in Books
PRESENTER: Sven Arnold, SPEAKER: Friedhelm Ptok
Youssef Bazzi (Lebanon). In Yassir Arafat Looked at Me and Smiled a young boy reports how he
was recruited into the Lebanese Civil War, where he fought and killed. All the while, he goes about
his normal life, goes to school and has his first encounters with girls, pornography and alcohol.
Violence as an everyday phenomenon leaves him cold, and war has become a game.
Sinan Antoon (Iraq/USA). Antoon’s début I’jaam, an Iraqi Rhapsody is a plea for the power of
words: an imprisoned student writes his life story in secret between bouts of torture and humiliation
by the guards. Marked by the surveillance and restrictions under Saddam Hussein, his story has
brief glimpses of private happiness. Memory and dreams flow together in his writing.
Wed, 16.09. at 7 pm, Haus der Berliner Festspiele / Upper Foyer
Kaleidoscope
Kjell Askildsen (Norway)
PRESENTER and SPEAKER: Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel
No one else says so much in so few words: on September 30 th , the Norwegian master of the short
story marked his 80 th birthday by presenting a new collection under the title Alt som for (t:
Everything as before). Reviver of the Norwegian novella, he has influenced generations of authors
throughout Scandinavia with his unmistakable, minimalist style. “A great storyteller … honest,
disturbing and merciless … in content, equal to Kafka … and Camus.” (El País)
Wed, 16.09. at 7 pm, Haus der Berliner Festspiele / Side Stage
Kaleidoscope
Norbert Gstrein (Austria)
PRESENTER: Wilfried F. Schoeller
In dry, melancholy language, Die Winter im Süden (Winters in the South) tells the story of a
Croatian fascist who immigrated to Argentina after World War Two, leaving his family behind.
When he returns in 1990 and tries to relive his days in the Ustascha, his daughter is crushed
between awareness of her father's guilt and her husband's self-righteous opportunism. “An
exceptional war novel,” according to Die Zeit, that creates a lasting, threatening feeling as vague as
it is constant.
Wed, 16.09. at 7:30 pm, Instituto Cervantes
Kaleidoscope
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