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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Russian journalist and Putin critic Grigori Pasko talks with Tobias Goltz about the North Stream Pipeline, Russia's state-controlled media and how his like-minded colleagues are dropping off like flies.
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The New Yorker investigates big city agrarian life. Outlook India waits in vain for the independent Indian woman. The Jesuits have set up a mission in Second Life, reports Tygodnik Powszechny. The Boston Globe presents an elegant hatchet man - the new literary critic at The New Yorker. In Gazeta Wyborcza, director Jan Klata explains why he would no longer vote Kaczynski. V.S. Naipaul writes about Derek Walcott in The Guardian. Elet es Irodalom is not happy with the folklore image of Hungarians living abroad. Semana looks for the Latin American Bartleybys. And Dissent quarrels over Nick Cohen's book "What's Left?"
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A new edition of the Dutch classic "Character" has just come out. For Dutch author Cees Nooteboom, the novel is a timeless masterpiece of cold fire. Ferdinand Bordewijk wrote it with an etching needle and today's readers are still at his mercy.
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The Berlin festival Tanz im August presents human swarms, wailing feedback and the dark side of the pas de deux. This is good for dance. By Katrin Bettina Müller
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A document recently made public testifies that the secret police of the GDR were instructed to shoot anyone attempting to escape over the border to West Germany. While the fact is already widely known, the publication has unleashed a new debate about the shootings at the wall. East German author Reinhard Jirgl explains why. (Image © Peter-Andreas Hassiepen)
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Merkur takes a stance against the supposed decadence of the West. In the New York Times, Mark Lilla writes on the politics of God and his modern prophets. The Economist is struck by how badly the CIA does its job. Outlook India portrays the feudal power wielded by the Owaisi family in the old town of Hyderabad. The Nouvel Observateur traces the sexism of philosophers. In the Guardian, Germaine Greer envisions under what circumstances Ann Hathaway may have read the sonnets of unfaithful Shakespeare.
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Ernst Tugendhat, philosopher and critic of German pseudo-profundity, talks to Ulrike Herrmann about the fear of death, Heidegger, anti-Semitism and unfounded speculations in brain research.
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The elites of East Germany lack orientation, as only the West has left its imprint on the power structure. Roland Mischke talks with political scientist Gunnar Hinck about imbalances and incompetences among East German leaders.
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"Keep on keeping on" is Walter Kempowski's motto and he applies this unique pertinacity to collecting German life stories. Critically ill, the great writer remains true to himself to the end. Instead of getting sentimental, he looks back matter-of-factly. By Peer Teuwsen (Editor's note: Walter Kempowski passed away on October 5th 2007 in Rostock. We put this
interview, published earlier this year, back onto our homepage in
his remembrance.) Image © Helmut Fricke
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The TLS shudders at the Doomsday Machines of the real world. Outlook India celebrates 60 years of freedom from colonialism. In Le Figaro, historian Elisabeth G. Sledziewski bemoans French ignorance about the Warsaw Uprising. Il Foglio even admires Garibaldi's thousand mistakes. Magyar Narancs fears Northern Irish conditions in Hungary. The Economist presents a study in comparative dictatorships. And The New Yorker follows the posthumous rise of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick.
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A hotel room in Munich, June 1976. Andre Müller looks back on a memorable talk with film and stage director Ingmar Bergman about human destructiveness, the Lord above or lack thereof, and making the world a microscopically better place.
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The very last feature in our NZZ climate change series. Author George Saunders describes the strange state of the climate in post-Gore America.
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Raul Hilberg, the father of Holocaust research, died on August 5th. The sobriety of tone and relentness precision with which he exposed the administrative machine behind what he termed "The Destruction of the European Jews" contributed to the book's failure to receive recognition for decades. His portrayal of facelessness spells out a chilling lesson for the future. By Gustav Seibt
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Crime writer Amir Valle is one Cuba's most promising young authors. In 2006 he won the Vargas-Llosa literature prize. But even then he had already fallen into disfavour with the Cuban Culture Ministry. Since 2005 he has been living in involuntary exile in Germany. By Knut Henkel
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In The New York Times, Michael Ignatieff regrets having endorsed the Iraq War. The New Yorker examines the exclusive interrogation programme of the CIA. Al Hayat recommends Arab countries focus more on people and less on God, blood and soil. After an attack on critics of Islam, Afshin Ellian asks in Elsevier what distinguishes Amsterdam from Tehran. In Gazeta Wyborcza, Mykola Rjabtschuk fears Ukraine may have shifted eastwards. Magyar Hirlap bemoans the mentality of subservience in Hungary. The Spectator identifies digitally-savvy seniors as the true trendsetters. And Il Foglio reads the personal ads.
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Berlin's famed housing settlements from the Weimar Republic are competing to join the Unesco list of world heritage sites, with the help of an exhibition in the Bauhaus Archiv. A critical look is being taken at the ideas of architects like Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius. By Dankwart Guratzsch
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No other obituary of Ingmar Bergman or Michelangelo Antonioni makes it as clear how necessary they were - and how bitterly we will miss them - as The New York Times'. By Arno Widmann
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A great theatre pair – director Luk Perceval and actor Thomas Thieme talk about fear, fury and self-hatred on the occasion of their five-hour Moliere marathon which just premiered at the Salzburg Festival. And about being a potato. By Peter Michalzik
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