Georg Büchner: Revolutionary with Pen and Scalpel [Georg Büchner. Revolutionär mit Feder und Skalpell], an exhibition from October 13, 2013 to February 16, 2014 at the Darmstadium Conference Centre, Darmstadt. The catalogue of the same title is published by Hatje Cantz, 612 pages, €65 (US $89). >More about the author
(c) WSWS, 2014
Archive for Literature
200th birthday of Georg Büchner
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Darmstadt, Georg Büchner, Germany, Hessen, Literature, revolution on 18 January 2014 by delclemTHE WORLD WITHOUT THE SHOTS OF SARAJEVO
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Austria-Hungary, First World War, Gavrilo Princip, German Empire, Hannes Stein, Johann Nestroy, Literature, review, Shots of Sarajevo on 24 November 2013 by delclem
A German novel imagines: what if ?
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Iconoclasm in Vienna
Posted in Uncategorized with tags art, Austria, cultural memory, Joef Weinheber, Literature, monuments, National Socialism, poetry, Vienna on 25 October 2013 by delclem
This work deals with a memorial to Austrian poet and Nazi Josef Weinheber (1892-1945) which stands at the Schillerpark in Vienna’s city centre. A temporary intervention aimed at exposing its conflicted history and leading to a permanent artistic reconfiguration and contextualization of the monument.
>more (c) Eduard Freudmann, 2013
“what’s wrong with the modern world”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags America, Austria, Europe, Jonathan Franzen, Karl Kraus, Literature, modernity on 20 September 2013 by delclem
“While we are busy tweeting, texting and spending, the world is drifting towards disaster, believes Jonathan Franzen, whose despair at our insatiable technoconsumerism echoes the apocalyptic essays of the satirist Karl Kraus – ‘the Great Hater’.”>full text & photo (c) THE GUARDIAN, 2013
1913 – The Year Before the Storm
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 1913, Austria, Europe, Florien Illies, Germany, history, Literature, World War I on 17 September 2013 by delclem
“Can you write a history of the year 1913 and ignore the disaster waiting around the corner? With the centenary of the First World War approaching that may sound perverse, yet it is precisely what Die Zeit journalist Florian Illies tries to do in his new book, which was a bestseller in Germany when it was published there last year.” >review (c) THE GUARDIAN, 2013
‘Shards’ – Leaving Bosnia (or not)
Posted in Uncategorized with tags autobiography, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnian War, fiction, interview, Ismet Prcic, Literature, review, Tuzla on 8 September 2013 by delclem
“There is a long & important history of memoirs & fictions, and hybrids of the two, that address the aftermath of war (particularly the Yugoslav Succession Wars of the 1990s). Shards, the impressive first novel by Ismet Prcic, finds inventive ways to interrogate the anguish of enduring and then escaping Bosnia during the war (1992-95). The novel is constructed of fragments — shards — seemingly written by its main character, Ismet Prcic. Ismet grows up in Tuzla and manages to flee shortly before his induction into the “meat grinder” of the Bosnian infantry. He has survived and made his way to America, but is fractured by what he left behind.” >full review & illustration (c) NYT, 2011; interview with the author (c) Suhrkamp/youtube, 2013
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- Netherlands liable for Muslim deaths in Bosnia, court says (cnn.com)
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“When the Devil Danced in Hungary”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Hungary, László Krasznahorkai, Literature, review, Satantango on 30 June 2013 by delclem
“One evening in October 2010, the Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai—a man in his fifties with a biblical look—appeared on the balcony of the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin, a white modernist building that’s a block north of Unter den Linden. At the same time an image of a dog, in silhouette, was projected from inside the building onto a large window below the balcony. Without introduction or explanation, Krasznahorkai then began to speak.”>more/ review (c) NYROB, 2013
Happy Bloomsday 2013!
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Central Europe, Hungary, James Joyce, Leopold Bloom, Literature, Szombathely, Trieste on 16 June 2013 by delclem
Enjoy your Ulyssey: James Joyce’s hero Leopold Bloom is probably the most closet Central European protagonist of Anglophone literature.
“Yellow Street”
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Austria, Elias Canetti, exile, Great Britain, Literature, London, portrait, Veza Canetti, Vienna, Yellow Street on 30 May 2013 by delclem
“Mean husbands, despairing servant girls, lecherous café owners and a snapping dog: these are just some of the protagonists who breathe life into the novel “Yellow Street”(1990) by Veza Canetti (1897-1963).” >text & photo album
(c) wieninternational.at 2013
“Blindly”: Reflections
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Blindly, Claudio Magris, criticism, essay, Italy, Literature, Trieste on 28 May 2013 by delclem
Triestine author & literary critic Claudio Magris, probably the last truly Central European intellectual, on his latest novel Blindly (2005), which was presented in English translation lately >essay (c) THE THREEPENNY REVIEW, 2013
Cf. my review of the book (in German) (c) Ruthner & STANDARD, 2007
delirium clemens 