Programme

_15.30_specials
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

My Life – Mario Vargas Llosa. A film by Harald Jung (ARTE/ZDF 2008, 43 Min.)
Mario Vargas Llosa is a writer, politician, literary theorist, journalist and occasionally an actor. He was born in 1936 in Arequipa, Peru, and with his Spanish and Peruvian passport he is at home in Lima, Paris, Madrid – and, until recently, in London as well. Every year he travels hundreds of thousands of miles around the world in order to satisfy his obligations as a juror, speaker and congress participant, or to accept honours and prizes. Harald Jung will outline Mario Vargas Llosa’s life by using numerous impressive archive documents and interviews with Llosa. Even at 72 years of age, “MVLl” is as pugnacious and as fearless as ever.
Afterwards, conversation with the director.
In cooperation with ARTE. Broadcast on ARTE on Sunday, 16th November 2008 at 18.15.
Admission free.

_16.00_reflections
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Foyer

Rolf Hosfeld (Germany)
Presented by: Barbara Wahlster
In the almost 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, few other subjects have been so exhaustively researched as the East German state. What was the GDR? Although a mere episode in the history of Communism, it still developed characteristics and values of its own, especially in the Ulbricht era. It was given the task of proving the validity of the Communist experiment in a developed, industrialised country, but this very task was its demise—with initially gigantic, and, under Honecker, rather defensive utopian ideas. Seen from a wider perspective, it was a consequence of the violent, “German” twentieth century, which ended in 1989.

_17.00_reflections
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Große Bühne

Giving the victims a voice
Mario Calabresi (Italy), Carlin Emcke (Germany),Peter Schneider (Germany)
Presented by: Angelo Bolaffi
“At 9.15 a.m. my father was shot just as he was opening the door of his blue Cinquecento for my mother”. Mario Calabresi was two years old when his father was murdered by leftist terrorists. In 1977 alone there were forty-two murders and 2,128 attempted murders in Italy. In his book “Der blaue Cinquecento” Calabresi has lent his voice to all those who remained speechless and were never spoken about – the family members of the victims. In 1985, Alfred Herrhausen was killed by a commando of the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion). Like Mario Calabresi, it was only decades later that Herrhausen’s goddaughter Carolin Emcke was able to write about these traumatic experiences in her book “Stumme Gewalt. Nachdenken über die RAF”, and to evaluate the state’s reaction to this violence. Peter Schneider casts a different glance back on the era; he critically grapples with his own writings of the year 1968 and scrutinises the revolutionary ideals of the generation from which perpetrators would arise.

_17.30_reflections
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Elena Tregubova (Russia/UK) discussing Russia in the new century with Manfred Sapper (Germany)
Elena Tregubova was working as correspondent for the Moscow daily paper “Kommersant” when a young journalist. She will be reading from her report “Tales of a Kremlin Digger”, about her encounter with Vladimir Putin and the development of a political system which was essentially shaped by him. After the publication of the book in early 2004, a bomb attack was carried out in front of her entrance door. She has been granted political asylum in the United Kingdom where she currently lives.

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

Irina Liebmann (Germany)
Presented by: Verena Auffermann
„Wäre es schön? Es wäre schön!“ is the title of an article written by Rudolf Herrnstadt in the Communist Party organ "Neues Deutschland" in 1951 to encourage the population of Berlin to begin the reconstruction of the destroyed city. Irina Liebman portrays her father as a protagonist of German history, marked by Fascism, war, and his devotion to Communism which ended tragically. The chronicle was awarded the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair.

_19.00_speak, memory
Literaturhaus | Großer Saal

Ferdinand Céline: North and Congo
Introduction: Hartmut Diekmann
Speaker: Simone Kabst
No one wants to go along with Louis Ferdinand Céline (1894-1961) – not with his rage (yes, if only we had strong rage and not only a glimmer) and not with his scorn. No one wants to go as far as earning the praise of “Stürmer” – a newspaper that distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets in the Nazi era. Scorner of all institutions – religion, school, military, League of Nations – destroyer of the bourgeois glamour through the “journey to the end of the night”. Travels in the Congo, Cameroon, Germany. Sentenced to death – then pardoned, then a children’s doctor in Meudon, France. How can one come to grips with Céline? His latest biographer alleges that he received a mark for good conduct in grammar school. Unbelievable!

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

Ulrich Peltzer (Germany)
Presented by: Marius Meller
"You are either part of the problem or part of the solution." "Teil der Lösung", Ulrich Peltzer's current novel takes place in Berlin. The characters move between establishment and protest, terrorism and post-modern theories in a life increasingly controlled by the state. Peltzer creates a movie-like atmosphere of a metropole and subtly combines an endearing love relationship with today’s times.

_19.30_scritture giovani
Münzsalon

Scritture Giovani I
Presented by: Tilman Rammstedt
Speakers: Kathleen Gallego Zapata, Ina Paule Klink
In the film “Sunshine” by Danny Boyle, the crew of Icarus II rush to help a dying sun. This year’s “Scritture Giovani” – the traditional cooperation between three international literature festivals – sees four young European authors exposing themselves to the light of the sun: “Sunshine” is the title of the anthology that accompanies the project, in which four of the authors’ short stories are published for the first time. This evening, Cynan Jones (UK) presents his text “The Buzzard“, Seray Şahiner (Turkey) reads “Basil“.
Part 2 of the readings and final discussion with all authors on 4.10. at 19.30

_19:00_kaleidoscope
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Adriaan van Dis (Netherlands)
The writer reads from his latest novel which will be published in German translation in 2009. It is the story of a flâneur in the modern big city, and of a world which is irrevocably divided into two halfs: the districts of the rich and beautiful – and the poor suburbs. A wonderful friendship develops between a rich man and a poor wretch who came to the French capital with a group of African refugees.

_20.00_specials
baxpax Dachterrasse

On the roof – SLAM high up!
Slamshow with Lara Stoll (Switzerland), Markus Köhle (Austria), Mark Terrill (USA), Ludditák (Hungary) und Wojciech Cichon (Poland)
Host: Martin Jankowski
Poetry Slam Show on the roof terrace of the Baxpax Downtown Hostel Hotel – Slam show with the best of the international SLAM!Revue as well as surprise guests. Also with the winner of the international “Poems of Hope“ competition.
In cooperation with the Baxpax Downtown Hostel Hotel, IBM and Berliner Literarische Aktion e.V.
Free entrance

_20.30_kaleidoscope
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Seitenbühne

Meir Shalev (Israel)
Presented by: Sigrid Brinkmann
Speaker: Naomi Krauss
Meir Shalev‘s latest novel “A Pigeon and a Boy” deals with a boy, conceived in an unusual way during the Independence War, who never knew his father and later on wanted to know everything about birds and how to breed pigeons. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reviewer Susanne Klingenstein described the book as “a lump of steel inside a marshmallow”, a book in which Shalev – who is also known as a biting political commentator and as a public advocate of a two-state solution – tells the story of a long-term love against the background of his country's history.

_21.00_literature of the world
Haus der Berliner Festspiele | Foyer

Dinaw Mengestu (Ethiopia/USA)
Presented by: Barbara Wahlster
Reader: Christian Banzhaf
In his much celebrated literary début, “The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears”, Dinaw Mengestu tells the story of an Ethiopian immigrant in the U.S. who thinks back to his homeland with nostalgia as well as bitterness. With lucid sentences and quiet style, Mengestu portrays the suffering that people cause each other. The German translation of the novel will be published in early 2009.

_21.00_speak, memory
Literaturhaus | Großer Saal

Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
Presented by: Hartmut Diekmann
Reader: Frank Arnold
While Joseph Conrad was working on his novel “Lord Jim”, he got “Heart of Darkness” off his chest in a very short time. His journeys at sea were journeys home to Poland’s hills (but of water), the journey to the Congo was in contrast an upstream one towards a home of engulfing adventure. In his foreword, Urs Widmer describes the course of the narration leading to the stark either/or: “It is a dire choice: between limitless (African) passions which herald death, and a subdued life in the tomb of Europe”. Some readers have been disappointed by what his novels have to say about Africa (Achebe and Conrad’s racism), others have learned more about European racism from him than anywhere else (Hannah Arendt).