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german

Book Review: “To the Back of Beyond” — Extreme Ambiguity

Evidently, plain-spoken language plus doubt and apprehension equate to novels that, once opened, are very hard to put down.

By: Arts Fuse Editor Filed Under: Books, Featured, Review, World Books Tagged: fiction, german, Kai Maristed, Michael Hofmann, Other Press, Peter Stamm, To the Back of Beyond, translation

Book Interview: A New Take on Kafka — A Conversation with Peter Wortsman

The standard view of Kafka reduces him to the patron saint of neurotics.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, Preview, World Books Tagged: Archipelago-Books, fiction-in-translation, Franz Kafka, german, Konundrum, Peter Wortsman, Selected Prose of Franz Kafka

Poetry Review: The Unexpected Compassion of German Poet Gottfried Benn

A collection of poems and essays by the admired German poet Gottfried Benn, who, because of his brief association with Nazism, has been absent from our mainstream, non-specialized, English-language view of modern German poetry.

By: John Taylor Filed Under: Books, Featured, Review, World Books Tagged: german, Gottfried Benn, Michael Hofmann, translation

Theater Review: “Mameloschn” — Three Jewish Women Living Through the History of Germany

Refreshingly, playwright Marianna Salzmann manages to be political without being didactic. Her characters live (rather than preach) through history, grappling with the transition from totalitarianism to democracy.

By: Ian Than Filed Under: Featured, Theater, World Books Tagged: Bobbie Steinbach, german, Guy Ben-Aharon, Lin Jaldati, Mameloschn, Marianna Salzmann, translation

Book Review: “In Times of Fading Light” — A Rich Story of Divided Hearts

Though its central events are in the past, conveyed by characters by means of often ambiguous shreds of memory and musing, “In Times of Fading Light” is a work of quiet power and beauty, dense with sorrow, telling detail, and suspense.

By: David Mehegan Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Eugen Ruge, german, In Times of Fading Light, translation

Poetry Review: Yvan Goll’s “Dreamweed” — Visions of a Shape-shifter

Yvan Goll may be the great shape-shifter, the Zelig, of twentieth-century poetry.

By: Jim Kates Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Black Lawrence Press, Dreamweed, german, Nan Watkins, translation, Yvan Goll

Book Review: Robert Walser’s Big Small Thoughts — Modest But Miraculous

In his prose and poetry, Swiss writer Robert Walser revolts from the chaos of modernity, engaging in extreme subjectivity only to confess to the heresy that is the self, choosing to revel in the simplicity of the rural life. Not for truth, but for the sake of a fleeting rapture.

By: Christopher M. Ohge Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: Berlin Stories, fiction-in-translation, german, Robert-Walser, Susan-Bernofsky, Swiss, The Walk, Thirty Poems

Fuse Books: A Few Year End Literary Favorites

As the year nears its end, time is running out to write at length about some of the new books that gave me pleasure. Thus this quick list of favorites. As usual, my taste runs to prose that’s off-the-beaten-path.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured Tagged: Aharon Appelfeld, An Answer From the Silence: A Story from the Mountains, Andrew Bromfield, Blooms of Darkness, Croatian, David Williams, Dubravka-Ugresic, german, Hebrew, I Am Not Stiller, Karaoke Culture, Laish, Max Frisch, Mike Mitchell, Russian, The Hall of the Singing Caryatids, translation, Until the Dawn's Light, Victor Pelevin

Film Feature: Nathan the Wise — A Silent Film for Humanity

Thought to be lost, the only existing print of NATHAN THE WISE was discovered in Moscow in 1996. The Coolidge Corner Theater is screening a tinted and beautifully restored version of the film, with an original score by Aaron Trant performed live by the After Quartet.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Film, Popular Music Tagged: Aaron Trant, After Quartet, german, Jewish, Nathan der Weise, Nathan the Wise, silent film

Book Review: The Greatest Horror Novel of the 20th Century

German author Ernst Weiss’s nightmarish vision of science gone mad in his 1931 novel Georg Letham is not rote Freudian; it is firmly in the social critique/ apocalyptic Darwinian mode.

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books Tagged: Archipelago-Books, Ernst Weiss, fiction, Georg Letham, german, horror, Joel Rotenberg, scientific romance

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