Sharing Fugitive Lives: Digital Encounters in Senthuran Varatharajah’s Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen
TRANSIT vol. 11, no. 2 Jonas Teupert Download PDF Abstract In Senthuran Varatharajah’s novel Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen, two members of a cosmopolitan academic sphere jetting around the globe to attend conferences contingently “meet” in the unlocatable space of Facebook where they initiate a conversation that soon shifts to personal stories of displacement, flight, and […]
Multicultural Germany Class: “The Bridge of the Golden Horn”
This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week’s summary is by Teddy Lee: The Bridge of the Golden Horn (original title: Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn) by Emine Sevgi Özdamar is a novel that portrays a young immigrant’s perseverance to surpass her […]
Book Review: “Why the Child is Cooking the Polenta”
As part of their work for the Multicultural Germany undergraduate seminar at UC Berkeley, students in the course have reviewed recent German books relating in various ways to topics of migration, multiculturalism, and contemporary German identity. Ying Ruan reviewed Aglaja Veteranyi’s novel “Warum das Kind das Polenta kocht” (Why the Child is Cooking the Polenta): […]
Warum das Kind das Polenta kocht
English translation: Why the Child is Cooking the Polenta, translated by Vincent King, Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press , 2012. Book review by UC Berkeley undergraduate Ying Ruan: Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Romanian writer Aglaja Veteranyi in 1999. The narrator is an unnamed girl, who travels with […]
Book Review: “The Passport”
UC Berkeley undergraduate Preethi Kandhalu reviewed Herta Müller’s 1986 novel “Der Mensch ist ein grosser Fasan auf der Welt” (The Passport): The Passport presents the story of Windisch, a miller who lives in the Socialist Republic of Romania with his wife and daughter, Amalie, who is in a desperate quest to acquire a passport to emigrate to […]
Der Mensch ist ein grosser Fasan auf der Welt (The Passport)
English translation: The Passport, translated by Martin Chalmers, London: Serpent’s Tail, 1989 Book review by UC Berkeley undergraduate Preethi Kandhalu: The Passport is a novel by Herta Müller that was published in 1986; Müller was the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. The novel was later translated into English by Serpent’s Tail – a […]
Book Review: “Transit”
UC Berkeley undergraduate Victoria Brinkerhoff reviewed Anna Seghers’ novel Transit: Transit describes the encounters and emotional turmoil of an anonymous twenty-seven-year-old German refugee in the early 1940s. The novel is written from the refugee’s perspective; in his narration, he documents his new experiences in the unoccupied city of Marseille, France after he flees from Paris in search […]
Transit
Written between 1941-42 while in Exile. First published in English, Spanish, and French in 1944; German original first published in the Berliner Zeitung in 1947. Newest English translation: Transit, translated by Margo Bettauer Dembo, New York: New York Review of Books, 2013. (Introduction by Peter Conrad, Afterword by Heinrich Böll) Book review by UC undergraduate Victoria Brinkerhoff: […]
Scherbenpark (Broken Glass Park)
English translation: Broken Glass Park, translated by Tim Mohr, Europa Editions, 2010. Book Review by UC Berkeley undergraduate student Brittany Scott: Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky was published in 2010 and is a young adult novel that brilliantly emphasizes how differences in nationality can impact one individual’s life in a multiplicity of ways. The main protagonist […]
Die schärfsten Gerichte der tatarischen Küche (The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine)
English translation: The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, translated by Tim Mohr, New York: Europa Editions, 2011. Book review by UC Berkeley undergraduate student Melissa Carlson: Alina Bronsky’s novel, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, which was written in 2010, examines identity and culture in a Tartar family living in Russia and the events […]