Programme

_09.00_children and young adults
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Große Bühne

Readings for pupils
In “Facing the Lion", an autobiographical account, Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton (Kenya) gives his audience an insight into the archaic and ritualised culture of the Massai-warriors and cow-sheperds. In a simple and riveting style, he tells of his first encounter with a lion, of the social rules in the village, the important event of the circumcision, his time in a missionary school, of his confrontation with modern technology and his alienating arrival in the USA, where he studied and worked as a sociology teacher.
School years: 7-9
Closed event. Registration required under Tel. 0049-30-27 87 86 66

_09.30_children and young adults
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Readings for pupils
Silently, a man on his boat lands on a beach, ties it up with strange equipment, ropes and stakes, and moves into an old house on the dunes. In his picture book "Es war finster und merkwürdig still" (t: It was dark and eerily quiet), Einar Turkowski (Germany) narrates how the townspeople observe the eccentric suspiciously and from afar. It soon becomes clear that the stranger is a cloud-fisher and uses his equipment to catch clouds and cause them to rain down splendid fish that the resentful, hate-filled locals would also like to possess.
School years: 3/4
Closed event. Registration required under Tel. 0049-30-27 87 86 66

_10.00_children and young adults
LesArt

“Looking for Alaska”. With John Green (USA)
Workshops for pupils
The sixteen-year-old first-person narrator Miles lives in the Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama. There he makes some remarkable friends, among them a girl, whose name is not the only extraordinary thing about her: Alaska. Miles’s unusual hobby – he collects dying people’s last words – permeates the friends’ discussions about life and death like a leitmotif. The story starts 136 days before and ends 136 days after an unheard-of event...
In order to prepare for a meeting with the author, the young participants will examine the content and form of this adolescent novel, which has as its central theme American young people’s view of life. Does the novel express exclusively American experiences, or can young people living in Berlin also sympathise with the characters in the novel? In order to bring themselves closer to the characters, the participants will work on their own translations of selected passages.
The preparatory session (Part 1 of the 2-part LesArt-event) as well as today’s meeting with John Green is accompanied by Rudolf Wenzel. During the meeting, the young participants will have the chance to exchange views with John Green about the content and form of his debut novel. Afterwards the author will read from his second adolescent book “An Abundance of Katharines”. In this book he puts forward a theory for everything – even love...
Part 1: 16.09.2008, 09.00 Uhr (ca. 3 hrs.), LesArt
Led by: Rudolf Wenzel (LesArt). School years: 1x 9/10
Closed event. Registration required under Tel. 0049-30-27 87 86 66

_11.30_children and young adults
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Readings for pupils
An old building, a deserted street, a new family…Beatrice Masini (Italy) “Diario di una casa vuota” (t: Diary of an Abandoned House), Beatrice Masini tells of an empty house that comes back to life: one day, when a family comes to view the house, considering to move in, the children Alma and Tim fall for the haunted place. Even when the move doesn’t happen, the pair use the house as a secret hiding-place, play in the staircase and the garden. Gradually, the house starts to breathe again. Until one winter’s day...
School years: 4/5
Closed event. Registration required under Tel. 0049-30-27 87 86 66

_17.30_children and young adults
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Duck, Death and the Tulip. A meeting with Wolf Erlbruch (Germany)
Children’s and Youth Literature for Adults
The artist Wolf Erlbruch became world famous with his children‘s book “The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit”. His artistic handwriting and pictorial language have greatly influenced children’s book illustration since the nineties. He adores old paper, refined collages and coloured pencils, topographical maps and stamps. He fashions highly-skilled and unfussy drawings and collages, in which the material and drawn elements morph into either grotesque or entirely ordinary image worlds. His works, of which many are already “classics”, deal with grand themes such as the creation story (“In the Beginning”, 2003) or the meaning of life (“The Big Question”, 2007), but also simple stories, like the one about the little mole.
He will be presenting his considerable œuvre – from his beginnings as a graphic artist, to his work in advertising, to his work as a children’s book illustrator, including his latest book, “Duck, Death and the Tulip”. After his slide-show, he will draw live to accompany the reading of his book “Mrs Meyer, the bird”.
Presented by: Shelly Kupferberg. Book signing afterwards.
Suitable for educators, students, parents, young people and art enthusiasts.
Entry: 6/5/4 €. (Online-)ticket presales on www.berlinerfestspiele.de (available immediately) as well as (from 01.09.2008) on Tel. (030) 254 89 100.

_18.00_literature of the world
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Foyer

Laila Lalami (Morocco/USA)
Presented by: Bernhard Robben
Reader: Floriane Daniel
Laila Lalami was nominated by Abdourahman Waberi for the programme section “Literatures of the World”. Inspired by newspaper reports of Moroccan refugees, she published her prize-winning novel “Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits” in 2005, a work that follows the lives of four migrants after landfall in Spain. In her new novel “Secret Son” – which Lalami will be presenting in Berlin, and which will be published in early 2009 – the author returns to Morocco: in the centre of the story is Youssef, who is growing up in the slums of Casablanca.

_19.00_kaleidoscope
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Große Bühne

Dacia Maraini (Italy)
Presented by: Arno Widmann
Speaker: Tina Engel
Colomba Mitta disappeared on the morning of the 2nd June. Her room was tidy, her bed made, wet towels were hanging from the windowsill. One year later, no-one believes that the young woman is still alive – apart from her grandmother Zaira, who will not stop searching. “Colomba” is the title of Dacia Maraini’s most recent novel to appear in German. The author, counted among the modern classics of Italian literature, will present her new book “Il treno dell'ultima notte”; set in 1956, it describes Amara’s journey through Europe looking for her friend Emanuele, whose last sign of life was in the Lodz ghetto.

_19.00_Focus Africa
Literaturhaus | Großer Saal

Wilfried N'Sondé (Congo/Germany)
Presented by: Nathalie Mälzer-Semlinger
Reader: Kathleen Gallego Zapata
The musician, composer and author Wilfried N’Sondé will present his début novel, “Le cœur des enfants léopards“, for which he has received several awards in France. A young black man is beaten up in a police station and charged with a crime that he cannot remember. In this short novel full of musicality and expressive language, N’Sondé tells the story of a tender, desperate love and, at the same time, lends a new voice to the problems of his generation.

_19.00_
Haus der Kulturen der Welt

“Von der Saat der Worte” (t: “Of the root of words“). Homage to Hrant Dink
With translator Günter Seufert and representatives of the International Hrant Dink Foundation (Istanbul) and the newspaper AGOS (Istanbul)
Presented by: Susanne Stemmler
Hrant Dink was assassinated in January 2007 by a young Turkish extremist. Now, the first German translation of a selection of his articles is being published. The Armenian-Turkish Dink, editor in chief of the small but important newspaper “Agos”, pushed for Turkey to come to terms with its past as a prerequisite for thorough democratisation. Taking the texts in the anthology “Von der Saat der Worte” as a starting point, Hrant Dink’s origins and life will be discussed, as well as the question of what it means to be Armenian – both in the Turkish republic and as a member of the diaspora – and also Dink’s contributions to future Turkish political questions.
In Turkish and German with translation
In cooperation with the International Hrant Dink Foundation, the Hans Schiler publishing house and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Free entrance

_19.15_kaleidoscope
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Hans Christoph Buch (Germany)
Presented by: Wolfgang Schneider
Hans Christoph Buch will read from his latest novel, “Tod in Habana”. Before the backdrop of a morbid Havanna, whose depiction reminds book critic Wolfgang Schneider of images from Tarkovsky films, the German cultural sociologist and expert of postcolonial architecture, Gustav von Achenbach, is mostly looking for fast sex. His name does not coincidentally allude to Thomas Mann’s “Death in Venice”. The novel is a swan song to the revolutionary Cuba, and a conclusive farewell to the myth that the Left cherished for so long.

_19.30_literature of the world
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Foyer

Ivan Vladislavić (South Africa)
Presented by: Thomas Brückner
Reader: Frank Arnold
In "Portrait with Keys" Ivan Vladislavić paints a vivid and complex portrait of Johannesburg and the new South Africa. Empathically he ambles through his city as observer, collector and participant at the same time. With finely tuned precision and humour he describes the fears, the prejudices and hopes of the inhabitants, creating – in 138 chapters – his personal topography of Johannesburg.

_19.30_kaleidoscope
Instituto Cervantes

Alfredo Bryce Echenique (Peru)
When reading translated texts, language-specific traditions and of the search for concrete forms of expression often goes unnoticed. Alfredo Bryce Echenique and his translator Matthias Strobel take as their central theme work concerning the transmission of cultures, and particularly examine the challenges involved in translating Spanish texts into German. Afterwards, various celebrities will commemorate the great translator Elke Wehr, who passed away in 2008.
Free entrance

_19.30_scritture giovani
Stadtbibliothek Neukölln

Thomas von Steinaecker (Germany)
Presented by: Angela Spizig
Thomas von Steinaecker, holder of the aspekte Prize, will present his recently published second novel “Geister”. One day, the six-year-old Ulrike doesn’t come home from school and ever since has remained without a trace. For Jürgen, who never met his older sister, she becomes a blind spot in his life. One day, he meets the comic-book illustrator Cordula. In her comic strip she takes up Ulrike’s story and brings the missing girl back to life. From then on, Jürgen gets ever more involved with the mysterious Cordula and crops up in the colourful fantasy world of her comics, which lead him from the Bavarian Chiemsee to the Indian township of Auroville. Nothings seems impossble to him.
Free entrance

_20.00_specials
Ballhaus Ost

The international SLAM!Revue
Twelve outstanding spoken word poets and performers from all around the world will be performing. With these participants, we encounter the masters of their genres – from spoken word poetry, rap and storytelling to experimental performance and comedy. Many of the poets are national slam champions, enjoy cult status in their literary communities and, at our SLAM!Revue, can be seen for the first time in Germany. At the end of the evening the audience determines the winner according to the rules of poetry slams (according to the Applausometer).
The founder of the international SLAM!Revue, the Berlin writer Martin Janowski, and the successful rapper and slam poet Gauner will be your guides through the evening of racing wordplay. The sounds are courtesy of DJ Paul America (Barcelona).
With Mark Terrill (USA), Lara Stoll (Switzerland), Markus Köhle (Austria), Ludditák (Hungary), Anna Nowok (Russia/Germany), Claus Ankersen (Denmark), Ben Porter Lewis (USA/Vietnam), KaCoSónia (France/Germany), Sergio Garau (Italy), Henna Laininen (Finnland), Wojciech Cichon (Poland), and MC Jabber (Britain), among others.
Guests of Honour: Gabriel Vetter (Switzerland), André Herrmann (Germany)
In cooperation with Ballhaus Ost and the Berliner Literarische Aktion e.V.
Entrance 10/12 €

_20.00_poetry talks
Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin | Beijing

Poetry Talk: Ouyang Jianghe (China), Tang Xiaodu (China), Xi Chuan (China), Wolfgang Kubin (Germany)
Presented by: Tilman Spengler
What is good Chinese, ist the question that a poet like Ouyang Jianghe asks himself at the time of the downfall of Chinese literature. What is our place in world literature, asks Xi Chuan of himself on behalf of all Chinese poets. Perhaps the literature critic Tang Xiadou can provide some answers?
Free Entrance

_20:45_Focus Africa
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Foyer

Henrietta Rose-Innes (South Africa)
Presented by: Marie Neumüllers
Reader: Kathleen Gallego Zapata
Henrietta Rose-Innes, formerly a student of Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee and the winner of this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing, will be reading from her recent short story “Promenade”. Every night after work a middle-aged man takes a walk along the coast close to his flat, watching the sea, sky and people. He pays particular attention to a young black man, with whom he has an unusual way of communicating. “Promenade” will be published together with other short stories under the title “Dream Homes. Snapshots and Short Stories from Cape Town” in autumn 2008.

_21.00_reflections
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Dieter Bachmann (Switzerland) in search of Italy
Presented by: Wilfried F. Schoeller
Longtime Editor in Chief of the magazine „Du“ and former head of the Swiss Institute in Rome, the author has been associated with Rome for decades – although he first moved from his Swiss home in Tessin to Umbria eight years ago. His long essay about Italy, the country that enchants and unsettles him, is an attempt to bring himself closer to the core of the Italian mentality, which he does by condensing his personal, and occasionally outrageous, experiences of the place.
In cooperation with marebuchverlag