Review of “Cold War, Hot Autumn” (2025) by Sabine Schiffner A childhood in Tunisia full of beatings and humiliation. Jail stays because of her speeches and poems, decades of living and writing in exile because of her political work as a feminist and human rights activist and yet raising three sons alone, in a writer's life with a lot of illness and loneliness: Najet Adouani is a Tunisian writer, poet and journalist who has been living in Berlin for almost ten years, where she was a long-time scholarship holder of the German PEN's Writers in Exile program. In hers

Review of “A Thousand Windows” (2026) by Gerrit Wustmann Flight, migration and exile are topics that will continue to concern us as long as despots rule states and do not tolerate any opposition to their power politics. That's why people from Syria fled to Europe, that's why people from Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia, came to Germany, and if we allow right-wing extremists to gain power in this country, people will have to flee Germany. These are topics that concern the writer Nassir Djafari, who was born in Iran in 1952 and came to Germany at the age of five

Review Autobiography David Scrase by Wolfgang Menzel Just two days after Wilhelm Lehmann died on November 17, 1968 in Eckernförde, an obituary appeared in the London daily newspaper “The Times”. The author of the obituary, David Scrase, describes how this international recognition came about in his autobiography “Life in German”: A young English German scholar, in his late twenties, a temporary lecturer in German at Oxford and also working on his dissertation on Wilhelm Lehmann, receives a telephone call from friends in Bremen saying they had heard on the radio that Lehmann was

A detailed review of the novel “Love in the Shadow of Dark Flags” by Halim Youssef has been published in the Musenblatt. The novel, published in German in 2025, takes up the events surrounding the attack by the so-called Islamic State on the city of Kobane in 2014 and combines historical experience with a personal, literary perspective. Youssef, who has lived in Germany for many years, talks about love, loss and resilience in times of war and existential threat. The review of Musenblatt particularly appreciates the penetrating inside view

An article about the novel “Cold War, Hot Autumn” by Najet Adouani appeared in the Maghreb Magazine. The novel, published in 2025 (translated from English by Christa Schuenke), takes readers to a Berlin apartment building in Kreuzberg - and right into life in exile. The article in the Maghreb Magazine not only sheds light on the plot of the novel, but also its social dimension. At the center is a poor, multicultural neighborhood, characterized by poverty, addiction and social insecurity - but at the same time also by moments of solidarity,

The author Widad Nabi (“Taking Roots”) spoke in the conversation at the Literaturhaus Wiesbaden Support Association about her writing between languages, about motherhood and the question of belonging. The reason for the interview is, among other things, the award of her poem “A Continent Called Body” with the renowned Premio Internazionale Camaiore and the publication of her current volume of essays. In the interview, Widad Nabi not only talks about the surprising experience in Italy, but also about her life between Kurdish, Arabic and German. She describes how language shapes identity

The author Gerrit Wustmann (“Dying in Your Antlers”) has written an article in the online magazine Qantare about the new novel “Midnight Collector” by Zia Qasemi. In this, the journalist not only takes a look at the plot of the novel, but also at its political relevance. Quote from the article: "The story, sometimes told in a fairy-tale style, speaks of faith and superstition as well as the art of interpreting things that seem inexplicable due to a lack of education as signs. It's about finding support in religion, but without

We are pleased that Manuela Hahn from Reading Worth Reading from the Book House has written a review of “Midnight Collector” by Zia Qasemi. Quote from the review: "I was impressed by how calmly and unobtrusively Qasemi tells the story. He doesn't evaluate or judge, he shows. He leaves the interpretation to the readers." You can read the whole review here.

Atef Abu Saif was a guest at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2025. At the Philippine pavilion there was an intensive conversation with three other authors about the role of literature in times of the Gaza war. There was a report about this event on the News Austria (click here) and msn (click here) pages. Feel free to take a look!