Programme of the 9th international literature festival berlin 2009

Thurs, 17.09. at 8 pm, / Literaturhaus_Kaminraum
Specials
Pier Paolo Pasolini – Who I am, Exhibition opening
Introduction to the exhibition: Peter Erismann and Ricarda Gerosa. Film excerpts: Pasolini as a
guest of Walter Höllerer’s event series “Optische Literatur” on 12.1.1966 in the Berlin
Kongresshalle. Reader: Frank Arnold.
18.09. at-22.11.2009. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday: 2 pm, -7 pm, Thursday: 2 pm, - 9 pm,
Saturday: 11 am, - 9 pm, Sunday: 11 am, - 7 pm, Admission €5 / €3. Accompanying the exhibition
will be a broad programme of events with ‘Long Nights’, film screenings, lectures, podium
discussions and musical performances.
Thurs, 17.09. at 8:30 pm, Institut français de Berlin
Kaleidoscope
Mathias Enard (France)
PRESENTER: Barbara Wahlster, SPEAKER: Nina West
The multilingual Candide Prize winner for 2008 studied in Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt, and teaches
Arabic at the University of Barcelona. The main character in his new novel Zone is also welltravelled.
The mysterious passenger takes a night train from Milan to Rome in order to sell a
briefcase full of documents to the Vatican. The ageing secret agent looks back on his life like a
modern Odysseus, a life which was closely intertwined with the violent history of Europe in the 20th
century.
Thurs, 17.09. at 8:30 pm, Maxim Gorki Theater / Studio stage
Speak, Memory
Panait Istrati (Brǎila, Romania 1884 − Bucharest 1935)
INTRODUCTION: Marianne Geitel, SPEAKER: Matthias Scherwenikas
Kyra Kyralina, The Thistles of Baragan, and more: “Panait Istrati is neither communist nor
bourgeois, neither worker nor intellectual […] He is the soul that fights for freedom in the body of a
person” (Nikos Kazantzakis). Born in Rumania, he lived and wrote in France. When his friends
abandoned him, he returned to Romania to die.
Thurs, 17.09. at 9 pm, Haus der Berliner Festspiele / Side Stage
Literatures of the World
Göran Sonnevi (Sweden)
PRESENTER: Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke
The recipient of the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize reads from his works Sprache; Werkzeug;
Feuer (t: Language; tool; fire) and Das brennende Haus (t: The burning house), an anthology of
collected poems. With a songlike flowing style, accomplished without the use of typical metered
accents, but instead utilizing pauses between halting and flowing phrases, Sonnevi combines
motifs from his comprehensive repertoire of themes.
Thurs, 17.09. at 9 pm, Babylon
Specials
Veit Heinichen (Germany)
PRESENTER: Marius Meller
The author believes that crime fiction is an ideal means of making the workings of society
transparent. In his new novel Die Ruhe des Stärkeren (t: The calm of the strong), he once again
dispatches the witty, intractable Commissar Laurenti to the border region around his adopted home
town of Trieste, where organised crime meets unscrupulous economic leaders. Enriched with black
humour and addresses for gourmets, the author’s crime fiction, which has also been adapted for
television, reflects upon the political-economic changes in Europe.
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