Twenty-five years after his cult TV series, Kir Royal, director Helmut Dietl has now come released a sort of ?sequel? for the big screen. Zettl focuses on the high-flying career of a ruthless media man in Berlin. As satire, however, the frigid figures in Zettl fail to warm up to viewers. ...
more
Merkur stands on the battlefield in front of the kindergarten and thinks about liberty. Mao was personally responsible for the Great Hunger, John Gray learns in the New Statesman from historian Frank Dikötter. In Polityka, Adam Krzeminski sounds the death toll for the humanities. Prospect reluctantly submits to the 200-strong cast of You Me Bum Bum Train - alone. In Eurozine, the legal historian Mikhail Xifaras describes Richard Stallman's copyleft movement. The Boston Globe tracks down lost writers' libraries.
read more
The NYRB remembers the centuries of Catholic resistance to integration into U.S. culture. Arundhati Roy discusses revolutionary strategies in Outlook India. Al Ahram is thrilled by a Ramadam production of Jean Genet's 'Deathwatch" in Egypt. In Rue89, Noam Chomsky defends Vincent Reynouard's right to deny the Holocaust. Le Monde has little appetite for Halal burgers. In the New Humanist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Kenan Malik battle it out over the burqa ban. The Independent prints a week's worth of articles on so-called honour killings.
read more
Even in the golden age of modernism, Tom McCarthy reminds upcoming authors in the Guardian, writers didn't have it easy. In Le Monde, Andre Glucksmann rails against the deportation of the Roma in France. Das Magazin explains how to pull a collapsing small town back onto its feet. In Elet es Irodalom, Laszlo Földenyi delights in being sucked into paintings by Uri Asaf. Nine writers look into the hollow eye sockets of the future in NZZ Folio. Vanity Fair delves into the horrors of the Greek economy.
read more
The Hungarian magazines are thrilled to be able to read Herta Müller's "Everything I Own I Carry With Me". In the Blätter, Jürgen Habermas calls for an extension of human rights into the social sphere. In La regle du jeu, big name European intellectuals defend their Croatian colleague Predrag Matvejevitch, who faces imprisonment for describing an ultra-nationalist Croatian poet as the "Catholic Taliban". Slate wants to know whether Nabokov's poem "Pale Fire" was meant seriously or not. The TLS meets radical feminists with fabulous names - like the anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre. Przekroj looks at the two types of Turkish cinema. And in the NYT, Jay Rosen explains why the Internet is eroding America's most beautiful ideal.
read more
Mediapart decries the connivances of French politics and media. In the Nation, Colin Robinson picks a fight with Amazon. Osteuropa rolls out the red carpet for the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The London Review remembers the media feeding frenzy around Tolstoy's deathbed. In Opendemocracy, the poet Tatiana Shcherbina feels the evil creeping back into Russia.
read more
The Swiss Magazin looks at the lawyers and doctors who are producing stewardesses and farmers. Caffe Europa shares Ulrich Beck's optimism about the religious mix of the future. The Boston Globe looks at the powerlessness of facts in the face of false convictions. In Le Monde, Michel Onfray trembles before the language of empire. The New Statesmen evaluates the new young supertaskers. The TLS reads a book about 19th anarchists. Outlook India and the NYT tackle terror in India, Pakistan and Yemen.
read more
The New Yorker wonders which is better equipped to determine the authenticity of a Leonardo da Vinci: the connoisseur or the forensic scientist. Polityka picks through the remains of the Fourth Republic. In The Observer, Claire Denis talks about shame and humiliation. In La regle du jeu, Roberto Saviano does not like what he sees in the eyes of his admirers. MicroMega has witnessed the birth of a political monster: illiberal democracy. The London Review of Books is looking for aliens to take care of our nuclear waste.
read more
The New Yorker profiles Saad Mohseni, Afghanistan's first media mogul. La vie des idees and the Guardian recommend Gilbert Achcar's book "The Arabs and the Holocaust". The children in Hungary are eating their revolution, fears Elet es Irodalom. Magyar Narancs and Rue89 fear for independence of the press. In Open Democracy, Lisbet Rausing worries about the future of the library. In the NYRB, Tim Parks warns non-English writing authors against liberal international readers.
read more
The Walrus strolls through Johannesburg with the flaneurs. In Telerama, Olivier Bomsel defines the digital as script.The London Review is peeved that Christopher Hitchens is having so much fun. In Osteuropa, Hungarian writers and nihilists weave away at the deadly void. The New Statesman reads Vasili Grossman's "Everything Flows" and meets the great man's daughter. Al Ahram warns European Muslims about the perils of Salafism. Salon asks why Adrian Lamo turned in the alleged whistle-blower Bradley Manning and what Wired's Kevin Poulsen had to do with it.
read more
The big stories of our time are being told in reportage rather than fiction, says novelist Geoff Dyer in the Guardian. Lettre International meets the marginalised in Rome and Rotterdam. In Espresso, Umberto Eco fantasises about 6 billion encyclopaedias. The Nation finds many ways to erase Israel from the map without being anti-Semitic. The Spectator speculates about the counter-cultural concentration camp that Glastonbury has become. The Atlantic waves farewell to men.
read more
Prospect chucks contemporary art into the dustbin of history. Where it will join Polish book culture, if Res Publica Nowa is to be believed. And iTunes to boot, according to the New Yorker. In El Pais Semanal, the physicist Michio Kaku sees the internet everywhere. Young people however, claims the LRB, are proving remarkably resilient to its influences. In the NYRB, Timothy Snyder reviews Christopher R. Browning's new book "Remembering Survival" about the ghetto in Wierzbnik. Le Monde puts three Chinese dissidents on a pedestal.
read more
The New Yorker escorts us into the extraordinary paranoid world of Wikileak founder Julian Assange. In Merkur, Udo di Fabio praises the egalitarian properties of money. The Economist discusses the latest mass import in Africa: homophobia. In Micromega, Paolo Flores d'Arcais cannot understand why Saviano needs defrocking. Paris is partying in celebration of the collapse of the Anglo-American system, das Magazin reports. n+1 delves into the Berlin Roman. The New York Times charts the success of Dutch politician Job Cohen.
read more
The NYRB takes on the privatisation of the net by Steven P. Jobs. The NYT is already bored of life in the suburban Applecrest Estates. In Eurozine, Sven Egil Omdal delivers a comprehensive report on the crisis in the Norwegian newspaper industry. The Walrus learns how to become an expert from the unrepentant whore Jamie Lee Hamilton. In Elet and Irodalom, we learn how Hungarian nationalism foments Slovak nationalism, And Umberto Eco explains in Espresso, why he would never boycott Gianni Vattimo.
read more
The Nation reads Jonathan Israel's history of radical Enlightenment. In Elet es Irodalom, György Konrad tells the Hungarians to stand up for freedom or kiss it goodbye. English is a Dalit goddess, standing on a computer, Tehelka says, and there's nothing you can do about it. In the Atlantic, Google's Eric Schmidt loses himself in his creepily colourful vision of the future. In Newsweek, Jacob Weisberg gives publishers the answer one would have expected from Google. Slate asks why Paul Berman is not being discussed by Arab intellectuals. Tygodnik Powszechny thinks about Polish-Russian reconcilation. Prospect explains why, in the future, you will be arrested for over-frequent visits to the toilet when flying.
read more
The NYRB solves the Cuba dilemma. In Eurozine, Martina Simecka and Laszlo Rajk talk about their fathers, prominent communists who were persecuted by communists. Julian Barnes reads Eugene Delacroix's diary for the TLS. Odra asks why Bogdan Wojdowski has been forgotten. In Le point, BHL explains why he supports JCall's "Call for Reason". The New Yorker portrays Andrei Ternowski, the 17-year-old Chatroulette inventor. Wired calls on programmers to create a new Facebook, where privacy is respected.
read more
RSS
Twitter
