Category Archives: Berlin

City of singles

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Before Berlin was so radically and comprehensively gentrified, I lived in a fourth floor apartment of a crumbling house whose windows looked across a concrete yard into an apartment of an old man. We largely kept different hours, and he to himself. As such, our exchanges never progressed beyond the occasional stairwell greeting.

But late at night I would often see the light go on in his kitchen, and in he would hobble. Until one evening, he didn’t. For a couple of days, I rang his bell and eventually alerted the building’s managers. They came and shortly thereafter confirmed my worst fears. He had died.

Elke Schilling, a silver-haired woman in her early 70s, had a similar experience in her block of flats. When she saw no sign of life from the neighboring apartment for a couple of weeks, she called the police. They would only break in on the condition that she paid for the repairs should the missing man be on holiday. Needless to say, he wasn’t. Read on or listen.

Category: Berlin | Tags: , , ,

Berlin and beyond: Into the woods

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Why do Germans have such a profound and enduring love affair with their forests? Tamsin Walker ventured into their deep, dark depths to try and understand.

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I’ll never forget my first walk among German trees. I had just arrived in the country and was a fish out of water. Quite literally. Having previously always lived within relatively easy reach of the sea, my new Bavarian home left me feeling claustrophobically land-locked. Somewhat incongruously, I chose to try and diffuse the mounting sense of unease by venturing into a nearby Wald. It didn’t help.

 

 

Category: Berlin, Writing

Move over electro, Berlin’s got a new beat

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Berlin features big on the global set list of electronica, but a bunch of musicians are strumming their stuff in an effort to add another, handmade, string to the city’s bow.

One chilly Friday night earlier this year, I was sitting in Schlesisch Blau mopping up the remains of the soup I’d ladled into my own bowl from the vast pots on the old-fashioned stove, when the chatter and chuckles that are the restaurant’s ambient sound were suddenly interrupted by the deep pluck and jangly twang of an unexpected musical interlude.

Conversations hushed, and within moments the trio of musicians had the stage – or the square foot of standing room in front of the giant soup pots – and the attention of the assembled company. No preamble. Just music that sounded as if it had been tailor-made for that very situation. They played for 20 minutes or so, took their bows, sold a few CDs and went on their way. Read on.

Category: Berlin, music | Tags: , ,

Don’t judge your blind date by its cover

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It reads like something from the opening scene of a cheesy film. A girl makes a mad dash out of the house, races down an inconvenient number of stairs, grabs her bike at the bottom and pedals off into the traffic. As she jumps red lights and dodges oncoming cyclists, she keeps one eye out for the time, which is – yet again – of the essence. It is 9:20 a.m. and she is already five minutes late. She is a lousy time-keeper.

Cursing her flaw, she reaches the intersection at Eberswalderstrasse. It’s 9:22. How long can she keep a blind date waiting? Might someone else come and snatch it up? She keeps going, weaving her way through pedestrians, prams and road workers, until at precisely 9:26, she turns into Kollwitzstrasse. Eleven minutes late. Her heart is beating in time with her efforts, and she’s not quite there yet.

She parks outside one of the numerous entrances to the Wasserturmplatz. She knows this square and had welcomed the suggestion to make it the scene of her mysterious rendezvous. But it’s been a while and her urban geography, it seems, is as poor as her punctuality. In her recollection, the statue of the lion where she is to meet her date was somewhere else. She hurries among the trees and along the sandy paths – watched by mother who is not watching her kids – in search of the one she hopes will still be waiting. Read on.

Category: Berlin, protagonist, Writing | Tags: , ,

Arabic literature goes west

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For many in the West, the term ‘Middle East’ connotes military action and political reaction. But behind the sobering news reports is a rich literary world waiting to be discovered.

Born millennia apart, King Ashurbanipal of Assyria and the contemporary literary journal, Banipal, have more in common than their names. Just like the 7th century monarch, who collected texts from across the neo-Assyrian empire to create the first library in the ancient Middle East, the UK-based publication compiles contemporary writing from all over the Arab world – albeit in English translation.

I came across Banipal at the International Literary Festival Berlin (ilb), where its founders, Samuel Shimon and Margaret Obank, were talking about their efforts to make Arab literature accessible to the wider world. Their new magazine, Kikah,translates the other direction, aiming to introduce readers in the Middle East to uncensored, high-quality Arabic translations of international literature.

In its blurb about the Banipal and Kikah event, the ilb program referred to the West’s “rudimentary knowledge of the Arab world,” claiming that only three percent of books published in the US are translations from other languages. Three percent? That seemed too meager to be true. But further research supports the claim, and what’s more, the scenario is repeated in the UK. Read on

Category: Berlin, middle east, Writing | Tags: , ,
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