Summer in the city …
… and everyone is gone. We’re also taking a little break, but wanted to leave you with some book recommendations. And if you’re in the city on July 19, find us in the garden of Kunsthalle Neukölln for a literary performance and drinks until late.
July 19
Literaturhaus Neukölln presents Chouf
Performance and DJ set in the garden of Kunsthalle Neukölln.
Multidisciplinary French artist Chouf crafts a meditative and sonically charged performance. Conceived as a living text, ESSEN unfolds as a poetic liturgy of desire, memory, and melancholia — a spleen that spills across languages, particularly resonating through the sharp clarity and musical depth of Goethe’s German. With her voice as instrument and compass, Chouf traverses inner and outer landscapes: ancestral hunger, collective yearning, and the faint pulse of hope in spaces where silence has long reigned.
Entry is free.
(DE/MULT)
7 pm | Kunsthalle Neukölln, Silbersteinstraße 118
Vijay Khurana - Passenger Seat
This is a beautifully written road novel about two teenage boys, their friendship and their violence. Its language is precise, disciplined, without sacrificing atmosphere or plot. (EN)
Nussaibah Younis - Fundamentally
A university lecturer moves to Iraq to start a deradicalization program for women in ISIS, under the auspices of the UN. She starts fixating on Sara, a young woman from the UK. Chaos soon ensues. This novel is funny and smart and would have deserved a much better cover. (EN)
Ryan Ruby - Context Collapse
A poem about the history of poetry? Sounds meta, but is also witty, smart and entertaining. A sweeping verse essay that will probably expand your concept of poetry. (EN)
Asal Dardan - Traumaland
What could German memory culture look like, if it was a practice of solidarity instead of a bad faith performance? Dardan traces the topography of German racist violence and right-wing terror from Berlin to Hoyerswerda, deftly using the geographical through line as a tool for exploring German continuities. (DE)
Dmitrij Kapitelman - Russische Spezialitäten
The narrator of this book – named Dmitrij Kapitelman, like the author – disagrees with his mother, who lives on Russian disinformation, about the war on Ukraine, so he takes the bus to Kyiv. A melancholic, funny, confusing, grotesque, at times aptly surreal tale about war and family, language and identity. (DE)
Tony Tulathimutte - Rejection
This bonkers ride through porn addiction, shitposting, incel-minds and the pitfalls of woke twitter might just be the beach read for anyone too online to put their phone away. (EN)