Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen.
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German contemporary literature has emerged from the post-ideological vacuum to deliver punch-packing and exacting miniatures that go straight to the heart of the unknown society in which we live. Ina Hartwig highlights a group of writers who all have their fingers firmly on the pulse.
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UPDATE:Melinda Nadj Abonji has won the German Book Prize for her novel "Tauben Fliegen auf" (Falcons without Falconers). The award ceremony will take place during the Frankfurt Book Fair which opens today. Find out more about the six shortlisted titles and read English excepts from each.
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Former East-German novelist Christa Wolf has spent a lifetime writing against forgetting and the repression of guilt. But the will to remember, it seems, has not been enough to prevent her from doing exactly that. Her biographer Jörg Magenau reviews her new autobiographical novel "Stadt der Engel", which ends in Death Valley. Perhaps 'dead end' would have been more to the point. Photo:©Susanne Schleyer
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The Austrian writer Josef Haslinger talks about his sexual encounters with paedophile priests as a boy in a Catholic boarding school. Instead of joining the chorus of moral outrage, he acknowledges the full spectrum of feelings that these episodes provoked, and argues that simple criminalisation is not the way forward.
Photo: Josef Haslinger by Tom Langdon
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Artur Domoslawksi's biography "Ryszard Kapuscinski non-fiction" sparked controversy even before it was published. Not only does it show the legendary reporter warts and all, it also shows where the reportage ends and fiction begins. Polityka's Daniel Passent meets the author who, in spite of it all, still regards Kapuscinski as his friend and master.
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Since its publication in January, Helene Hegemann's novel "Axolotl Roadkill" has been at the centre of a debate whose vagaries of terminology have allowed the seriousness of the case to be downplayed. Philipp Theisohn wishes the literary establishment would drop all its talk of intertextuality in favour of a more democratic category: plagiarism.
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"Herta Müller has eyes like spotlights that drive out the darkness night after night." So begins Verena Auffermann's portrait of this year's literary Nobel laureate, in her book about 99 women writers, "Leidenschaften".
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Romanian novelist Mircea Cartarescu celebrates Herta Müller's Nobel Prize, raising his glass to a writer with an inner sword and a literary style that is pure poetry.
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UPDATE: The German Book Prize 2009 has been awarded to Katrin Schmidt for her novel "You're Not Going to Die". Read excerpts from all the shortlisted titles - including one from the Nobel Prize laureate Herta Müller's novel "Everything I Own I Carry With Me".
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The new novel by Nobel laureate Herta Müller tells of a harrowing experience which will leave an indelible stamp on its survivor for the rest of his life. Her book stems from interviews with the poet Oskar Pastior and other Gulag survivors. An excerpt in English.
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Oleg Yuriev takes a black tomcat to the crossroads on Christmas Eve to gain new perspectives on the mysterious nature of money and why it always vanishes.
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Twenty years after Ceausescu's execution, his secret service is still active - only its name has changed. Secret files are being manipulated; shadowing and smear campaigns continue. For the first time, Romanian-born German writer Herta Müller describes her long history of Securitate persecution, uncertain of how much she has yet to endure.
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We are about to close the chapter on the age of the printed book. It is a time for bullet biting and belt tightening, but not mourning. Jürgen Neffe takes a refreshingly postive look into our post-Gutenbergian future.
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Günter Grass has just published his diary from 1990, recording the tumultous events after the fall of the Berlin Wall. "From Germany to Germany" is a list of ominous predictions for the future of German unity. The former GDR writer Monika Maron looks at how blinded Grass was by his own preconceptions.
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This year Turkey was the guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair. We introduce the books that attracted the most critical attention.
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