2019 was an eventful year: we published 21 books and a calendar and there were 62 events with our authors and translators!
Started the year with poetry
The first appearance of the year was Amir Shaheens Lyric band Traces of residual light. Divided into three groups, assembled Traces of residual light around sixty poems, including the poem for the first time in a book Sediment, for which Shaheen was awarded the postpoetry.nrw prize in November 2018. Shaheen gave readings not only in Bremen but also in his hometown of Altena, in Cologne and in Hürth-Hermülheim.
Our second release was also poetry. Juerg Beelers The birds return is influenced by the experience of being a stranger, of being lost and of exile. The book premiere took place on June 13th in the Leuwer bookshop.
stumbling blocks
Also published in the spring the fifth volume in the Stumbling Blocks series.
The series of publications deals with the biographies of the 652 Bremen Nazi victims whose memory has been honored by the STOLPERSTEINE BREMEN project since 2004. After the four volumes on the regions North, Central and Ostertor/Oestliche Vorstadt and Schwachhausen, Horn-Lehe, the biographies of those who lived in Findorff, Walle and Gröpelingen will be published in 2019. The book premiere took place on March 28, 2019 in the City Library West.
Widad Nabi
The volume of poetry was also published by us in the spring Shortly before thirty, ...kiss me! by Widad Nabi. In her texts, the Syrian-born author deals with insatiable longing, loss, lust, pain and the search for human closeness.
This year she has not only given readings at the Leipzig Book Fair, in Hamburg and in Cologne, but there have also been a lot of reports about her. In addition to a post at 3sat culture time numerous magazines and newspapers also reported on her, including Vogue.
spring of poetry
The new book was also published in the spring night wind by Inge Buck with drawings by Lothar Bührmann and the book of poetry memory dogs by Ramy Al-Asheq, the second edition of which was published in October.
In spring there were also readings and lectures in numerous cities in Germany Mahmood Falaki, Pedro Kadivar, Eberhard Pfleider, Gunther Gerlach, Nahid Keshavarz, Berzan Kejo, Inge Buck, Ramy Al-Asheq, Fariba Vafi and Widad Nabi.
Learn languages with Sujet Verlag
2019 is not just that for us third volume of the Persian textbooks by Mahmood Falaki appeared, but also the book Owl Hannes by Friederike Schmidt-Landwehr and Mahmood Falaki, which is intended to help aphasics and German learners, was published.
Summer there Prose
We have the two books with us in the summer The old man from Berge by Habib Tengour in the translation of Regina Keil-Sagawe and The first days of the world by Salem Khalfani appeared.
Tengour is considered "one of the most powerful and imaginative poetic voices of the post-colonial francophone Maghreb" (Pierre Joris). In The old man from the mountain, on which he wrote from 1977-1981, he traces religious totalitarianism, asks about the intellectual's responsibility in the face of war, corruption and ideological hardening, the suitability of religion, science and politics as viable paths to "truth".
Khalfani In his novel, he deals philosophically with his homeland, Iran. In retrospect, the protagonist reports how he found his first love in the teacher Leili as a fourth-grade student. He can't forget his first love. He writes (love) letters to the address of her house in Tehran several times without getting an answer.
There was also something for the young readers in summer 2019: The second part of the youth series Ella and Max Monika Dietrich-Lüders appeared to us. The book premiere took place in the Leuwer bookstore.
Also visited Dietrich Lüders numerous schools and libraries to read for children and young people.
In summer there were also readings Habib Tengour, Amir Shaheen, Inge Buck, Nahid Keshavarz, Widad Nabi and Ramy Al-Asheq held in numerous cities.
Lothar Bührmann
The Bremen artist died in August 2019 Lothar Bührmann, with whom we worked together for a long time and who was also a friend to us. To honor him and his memory, we have released a special edition featuring the poems he illustrated.
"Lothar was a poet enthusiast. One for the lyrics The focus of his creativity and his artistic work were, and language, too, especially poetic language, was a basis for his cartoons An artist who didn't talk long, but drew more fully Enthusiasm, and had a big heart for the language and written Pictures. The images in his cartoons were signatures and companions of the Book pages, were consent for what happened in the book. And you continued harmoniously through the book in minimalist form, like the Poems themselves. The poems and the pictures cannot be separated, they are unitary in a unique composition, they are twofold Images: in the text and in the cartoons.”
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In December we also organized a reading Inge Buck, Rudolph Bauer, Cornelius Kopffinke and Madjid Mohit to say goodbye to Lothar.
Reissued
In autumn 2019 we will have the volumes of poetry Ganymedean Insights or The Last Image and The light at the end of the tunnel by Bernd Jaeger relaunched.
A reading also took place on October 10th Bernd Jaeger in the Leuwer bookstore in Bremen.
Our highlight: Madonna's last dream
Our biggest project in 2019 was probably the novel Madonna's Last Dream by Doğan Akhanlı in the translation of Recai Hallaç.
Doğan Akhanlı engages in Madonna's Last Dream the short stories Madonna in a fur coat by the Turkish poet Sabahattin Ali and rewrites them. from Akhan makes Ali himself a character in a novel. On his way into exile in 1948 he was killed by members of the Turkish secret service. Immediately before his death, he confesses that Maria Puder actually died differently than in his novella. Madonna's Last Dream is an attempt to discover the true story of the life and death of Maria Puder during the Nazi era.
The novel is one of the most important publications in Turkey and the German translation we published has also received several awards. Doğan Akhanlı not only won the Goethe Medal, his novel also came sixth on the 2019 Litprom Best List.
Doğan Akhanlı not only read in Bremen, Göttingen, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Munich in 2019, but also at the Frankfurt Book Fair. He was also widely reported on, including by WDR, Süddeutsche and Radio Bremen.
Persian poetry
Poetry from Iran is one of our program priorities and in 2019 we were able to expand it further. In October we published the anthology Hold out in the night until Wine by Kurt Scharf.
Kurt Scharf presents in this new release with the subtitle A selection of the most beautiful Persian poems of the 20th century Poetry from the years 1941 to 1979, an epoch he himself called Golden Age of Persian Poetry designated.
Iranian evenings
This year there was a small version of the series of events that started in 2018. We held two readings on Iranian literature. one with Salem Khalfani to his novel The first days of the world and one with Nahid Keshavarz to her anthology Flüchtlingscafé.
A topic that affects us all
The non-fiction book was also published in the autumn Human Rights. Universal and On Site by the editors Eva Senghaas-Knobloch, Witha Winter von Gregory and Shazia Wülbers.
The book deals, in the form of essays, with nine articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Authors from science and practice examine one of the articles in nine chapters. In this way, they deal with the history and topicality of the human rights that have been dealt with in public.
The book presentation of the work took place on October 28th in the bookshop Kamloth + Schweizer. Among other things, there was a speech by Karoline Linnert on the subject of what human rights actually concern us.
With poetry through 2020
We are particularly proud of ours Poetry calendar for 2020, which came out in October. In the biweekly calendar, a new, beautifully illustrated poem can be opened every two weeks.
The premiere of the calendar took place on December 10th in the Leuwer bookshop. The authors Inge Buck, Gunther Gerlach, and Elke Marion Weiss and Matthew Groll presented texts and there was a musical accompaniment by ,.
autumn poetry
Four new volumes of poetry were published in October and November: The Anthology That's how you take life with you by Angelika Sinn, The life of the hats by Eberhard Pfleiderer, Glass feud by Shirin Novosian and Strange world by Suleman Taufiq.
The eight authors of the von Angelika Sinn The anthologies published originally come from Syria, Chile, Venezuela, Iran, Turkey and Bangladesh, but they all now live in Germany. For two years they took part in a writing workshop at the Bremer Literaturkontor. The resulting poems and stories deal with childhood, family, friendship and love, with small incidents and big events, with the everyday and special aspects of every life. The book premiere took place as part of the global on October 26th.
Eberhard Pfleiderer dedicated his new book to hats. He explores how much hats influence us and what they say about us. In 61 lyrical and prosaic texts he writes about all kinds of hats; from fur hats to top hats, everything is included. The whole thing is unpainted by the photographs of Hervé Maillet. The book premiere took place on November 27th in Bremerhaven.
The new volume of poetry Shirin Novosian takes on the theme of fear and sadness, sometimes directly, without beating around the bush, in all its fragility and force. And at the same time it is a volume full of linguistic vitality and musicality through language: in addition to texts in German and English, Persian and Lithuanian sprinkles, there are lines in Portuguese and French, to which their German versions are always attached.
Suleman Taufiq shows in his poetry that what is foreign is undermined by a variety of impressions, scraps of memory and fantasies. But his poems are also a kind of declaration of love to a stranger that becomes more and more familiar over time. For him it is a place of encounter, of development. His texts and the photos / graphics of John Traub are opposed to each other and yet exist independently of each other. They lead a rather inconspicuous, associative dialogue with each other.
In autumn there were also readings Suleman Taufig, Widad Nabi, Salem Khalfani, Mahmood Falaki and Nahid Keshavarz instead of.
Habib Tengour in Bremen
One of our highlights this year was the bilingual reading and discussion Habib Tengour and Radouane Belakhdar at the Institut francais Bremen on December 5th.
Tengour read from his book in French The old man from the mountain and there was an exciting contribution on the relationship between literature and politics as well as on the current political situation in Algeria by Belakhdar.
The moderation and reading in German took over Schirin Nowrousian. Interpreted by Wolfgang Barth.
