Reading List # 127
An entirely subjective list of things happening in Berlin
June 15
Res Sigusch: “Unbegründete Ängste”
Reading and talk. Moderated by Georgina Fakunmoju.
The thirty-year-old Christian Lotz lives a queer single life in a small town in Saxony. Every Sunday he meets his parents for a champagne breakfast, and during the week he works at a gym. Muscular and handsome – his mother raves that he looks like David Beckham in the early 2000s – he is plagued by inner insecurity and worries about basically everything: How does he come across to others? Why can’t he find the right man? What does the future hold in times of climate change, right-wing extremism, and pandemics? And isn’t he perhaps already terminally ill, as his daily internet searches would have him believe? His answer is always the worst-case scenario. Thus, an existential fear grows within Christian that soon knows no cause. Only when his situation becomes impossible to ignore does he open up to those around him – and learns: Misery loves company. And sometimes all it takes is a spark of courage.
(DE)
7 pm | Bezirkszentralbibliothek Pablo Neruda, Frankfurter Allee 14 A
June 17
Dirty Pages - A Cookbook Club #2
Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution by Roxana Jullapat
Every two months, the book club picks a cookbook, cooks from it, and gathers to share what they’ve made. Read the book, try out a few recipes (three or more if you can), then bring a dish to their potluck-style meeting.
At its heart, cooking is about more than food or recipes; it’s about home, nourishment, and bringing people together. The book club eats, swaps notes on what worked (and what didn’t), and talks about everything else that matters.
For the second session, they will dive into Roxana Jullapat’s Mother Grains – Recipes for the Grain Revolution. The book covers eight grains: barley, buckwheat, corn, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, and wheat. Jullapat frames their flavors and textures alongside their historic lineages and the farming communities around the world that have kept them alive.
(EN/DE/ES)
6.30 pm | Zabriskie Bookstore, Reichenbergerstr. 150
June 17
Goethes Diwan: Nino Haratischwili
With “Das mangelnde Licht”, Nino Haratischwili has created a novel whose impact extends far beyond the German speaking world. Numerous translations attest to the international attention the novel has garnered – and to the importance of supporting translation for cultural exchange across borders. How does a story change when it is recreated in another language? What specific challenges did the translators face? And what does a book’s global resonance reveal about the themes that unite us?
To mark the 75th anniversary of the Goethe-Institut, author Nino Haratischwili meets with her translators Barbara Fontaine and Maia Panjikidze, who have rendered the novel into French and Georgian. Moderated by Anne-Dore Krohn.
(DE)
7.30 pm | Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Am Sandwerder 5
June 18
Dinosaurier der Diaspora
In 1978 and 1979, the world’s attention was focused on Iran – on the revolution that toppled the Shah and on the new Islamic Republic, which very early on began imprisoning, torturing, and killing many members of the opposition, including numerous returnees who had initially supported the revolution from abroad. Survivors left the country (once again) and scattered into a widely dispersed and politically diverse diaspora.
Currently, the war dominates the news from Iran. The protests, which were brutally suppressed in December 2025 and January 2026, have fallen out of the spotlight. For a brief moment, the end of the tyranny seemed near, but hopes both at home and in the diaspora were dashed. Solidarity within the diaspora with the uprisings in Iran has a long history and draws attention to the Iranian opposition figures whom their political forebears once called dinosaurs and who, in the eyes of their children, have themselves become dinosaurs.
In her essay “Dinosaur Child”, Maryam Aras addresses this generation and gives them a voice, embarking on a search for clues based on her father’s political biography while reflecting on her childhood in the Iranian diaspora in Cologne. In conversation with Nacim Ghanbari and Elahe Haschemi Yekani this evening, she reflects on what a political movement in the diaspora can be and what role media perceptions of Iran have played and continue to play in history. What constitutes the intellectual legacy of the exiled “dinosaurs”? Where do their children see themselves, and how should we deal with the historical traces of a diverse diaspora?
(DE)
7.30 pm | diffrakt, Crellestr. 22