Hooks on the Net - Online Communities and German Kids

Why do teenagers find SchülerVZ, flickr or YouTube so fantastic? What are they finding in the communities on the internet that doesn't exist in real life, and what exactly are they doing with it? The JFF- Institut für Medienpädagogik (Institute for Media Education) looks into these questions and learns from a 15 year-old "I think the future will just be one big Second Life."... more more

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The quest for Christa Wolf

Wednesday 21 December, 2005

Fifteen years after reunification, Christa Wolf, a prominent German writer who chose to remain in East Germany and who was later branded a "state poet", talks with Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns and Stephan Lebert about private chats with Honecker, a German society in check mate, the influence of Goethe, the shortcomings of Brecht, and the lasting effects of Utopia.
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From Turkish boy to German writer

Monday 19 December, 2005

Gingerbread hearts, 4711, the lovely Petra and appalling paintings. Author Feridun Zaimoglu describes how growing up on a German diet eventually bore literary fruit.
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Books this Season: Fiction

Autumn 2005

We present the books that shaped Germany's literary world this autumn, with futuristic novels about clones and time standing still, two major tomes on the fall of the Wall, and a sampling of bookish delights from around the globe.
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Books this Season: Nonfiction

Autumn 2005

Essays by Karl Schlögel and Andrzej Stasiuk, memoirs by Martin Walser and Luc Bondy, histories of German fascination for Russia and a friendship with Hitler, a Weber biography and a book on painter Gerhard Richter.
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Books this Season: Political Books

Autumn 2005

A monumental Mao biography, an essay on hate, a book about a 1969 failed bomb attack in Berlin's Jewish Community Centre, and a study of "mental capitalism" on the pervasiveness of advertising.
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The carnival continues

Monday 7 November, 2005

Ukrainian poet and playwright Yuri Andrukhovych talks to Barbara Burckhardt about his new play "Orpheus, Illegal", the Orange Revolution, euphoria, disillusionment and Bubabu.
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The bright side of the moon

Wednesday 26 October, 2005

Guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Korea presented a lively mix emphasising both tradition and transformation. In the absence of North Korea, politics was blended out and culture did the talking. By Andreas Breitenstein
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Please touch!

Friday 21 October, 2005

Korea is the featured country at this year's Book Fair in Frankfurt. Poet Hwang Chi Woo, head of the Korean delegation, reflects on the difference between the visual culture of Europe and the sensual culture of Korea. Where he comes from, Western aesthetic categories simply don't apply.
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Korean literature in flux

Tuesday 18 October, 2005

The country in focus at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair is Korea. Katharina Borchardt takes a look at the abundance of recently translated works and discovers a literature full of contrast and in the midst of change.
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Writing is the food of the gods

Wednesday 12 October, 2005

Austrian poet Friederike Mayröcker has written a new book of prose, "And I shook a darling", haunted by the ghost of her life-long companion Ernst Jandl, who died in 2000. By Christina Weiss
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And the winner is...

Wednesday 28 September, 2005.

On August 1, we launched a poetry translation competition to celebrate what would have been Austrian poet Ernst Jandl's 80th birthday. Entries poured in from around the world, a jury headed by poet Barbara Köhler deliberated long and hard. Now the long-awaited moment has arrived. And the winner is ...
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Jandl Contest Part II

English translations


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Jandl Contest Part III

International translations


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Journey to the Alaska of my past

Monday 19 September, 2005

"As I today, after many years, start off on a journey to the land of my birth, I feel as if I were leaving for Africa or Alaska. I am leaving for the unknown lands of my past without actually knowing why." Serbian author Bora Cosic visits his divided homeland for the first time since 1992.
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"Are you done? I've got things to do"

Friday 26 August, 2005

Marcel Reich-Ranicki is known as the Pope of literature – that's dumb. Because the Pope is not interested in erotica and his language is rarely juicy. Better: Marcel Reich-Ranicki is an 85-year-old pop star who entertains his audience with book reviews. A conversation with weak knees.
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