Monday March 20, 2006

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20.03.06

There is no question who stole the show at the Leipzig book fair: Clemens Meyer, who also happens to be Leipzig born and bred. Felicitas von Lovenberg says the readings from his novel, "Als wir träumten" (Whilst we were dreaming) were rather like being at a rock concert. "That's not really a surprise because German literature hasn't experienced such a powerful, determined debut for a long time. The book is full of rage, mourning, pathos and madness. It's a novel about a gang of petty criminals from Leipzig who aren't just lashing out against the police, their parents and rival gangs but also against their own existence. That the author just turned 29 and lives in Leipzig and the fact that his appearance and demeanour show that personal experience has had a hand in the novel, makes it all the more thrilling, in a sort of unsettling way.“


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 20.03.06

At the end of the Leipzig book fair, Ijoma Mangold asks herself, "Doesn't it get a bit tiresome for writers from Eastern Europe to always be forced to talk about Europe?" The book fair has traditionally been seen as a platform for Eastern European authors. The very ironical Slovakian author with the razor-sharp intellect, Michal Hvorecky was here. The Berlin-based publishing house 'Tropen' has just published his book, 'City: Der unwahrscheinlichste aller Orte' (City: The most unlikely of all places). Born in 1976, he belongs to the young generation. 'These writers from Eastern Europe,' he says, 'who are always participating in conferences about Europe. I find them unbearable.' His freakish, anti-utopian novel about new capitalism is itself highly politically charged. Because Hvorecky speaks excellent German, he is well acquainted with the literature of his German colleagues. 'I had expected more from them. For me there's too much realism and too much Ego. Literature for me is more about the imagination. I want something a little more wild.'"


Saturday 18 March, 2006

Berliner Zeitung, 18.03.2006

Do we want immigrants or not? The questionnaire that the state of Hesse has proposed will even turn a dog away from Germany. Arno Widmann finds the questions simply absurd. "Can Germans to-be answer question 88 (Explain the meaning of the freedom of opinion and freedom of the press) the way Paul Sethe (former publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung) did, namely the freedom of 200 rich people to spread their opinion, or do they have to express it more politically correctly in order to be let into the country of Germans? The trick of the democratic constitution of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland lies in the fact that traditions, claims and convictions can be questioned by any citizen. This questionnaire assumes that there is only one correct (and decisive) answer to each question or at least no more answers than the bureaucrat knows. That is the authoritarian, undemocratic and at the same time absurd aspect of this undertaking."
(read our feature "Taking the immigrant test" here)


Die Welt, 18.03.2006

The Book Fair in Leipzig is celebrating a "Debutant's Ball," the star of which, Tilman Krause reports, is Clemens Meyer. "The entry of the local matador was greeted with roaring applause. And Clemens Meyer, a gentle Saxon giant, is just as happy talking about his extraordinarily colourful tattoos as his texts ('I have a great skin colour! And every time I earn 100 Euros, my green dragon gets another wing"), as he is 'serving' his friends, as though he learnt this from Mick Jagger or Robbie Williams. Before he gets down to the reading, he's generous enough to show us a bit of his decorated flesh. His debut novel 'Als wir träumten' (Whilst we were dreaming) about disoriented but very lively young working class Leipzigers has become a cult book in this neck of the woods."

Thea Dorn visited Turkish German author Necla Kelek and learned that she was a member of the metal-workers union IG Metall by the age of 17 and was keen on Marxist-Leninist teachings. "The inequality between man and women which Marxist Leninism likes to consider a 'marginal contradiction' became a central point of Kelek's thinking and work. Is this why today, so many 'Lefties' pull faces when they hear the name 'Kelek'? Because she threw off the Marxist Leninist mantle for good? Because she calls so adamantly for the responsibility of the individual, as though it was just discovered – and not something that the rational Westerner has learned to defame as 'neo-liberal'? Because she demands a second and comprehensive enlightenment of the enlightenment for both sexes?" (see our feature by Thea Dorn here)


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18.03.2006

Johannes Willms considers the youth protests in France to be the symptom of a very deep uncertainty in many social classes, which is related to their professional ambitions: "According to a survey, 75 % of those under 30 say that their greatest wish is to become a bureaucrat. The existential uncertainty that this expresses can no longer be quelled with well-intended words and promises or retrospective explanations of a law which seems to be of no relevance to them. (...) The result of this malaise, in which youth feel that all their diplomas and certificates don't guarantee them anything professionally or socially, is shared by many in the older generation."