March at Lettrétage

Copyright: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (c) Joerg Kandziora; Heather Parry (c) Dave Parry; Joseph Roth (c) Lotte Altmann

What our English-language events have in common this month is love: a strange love that lasts beyond the grave, a love-hate relationship with a city, and the first love of a girl who becomes a woman. When love and the grave are mentioned in the same breath, the gothic novel is not far away. Heather Parry’s ORPHEUS BUIDLS A GIRL draws on this genre to unfold a tale of deranged obsession. Joseph Roth did not like Berlin. At the same time, it can be said that the years he spent in the German capital were one of the most successful periods of his career. WHAT WE SEE: JOSEPH ROTH AND OUR BERLIN features a discussion of Roth, his life and his feuilletons, as well as readings of texts inspired by him. THE FIRST WOMAN by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi tells a cross-generational story about growing up, first love, being and becoming a woman, and the search for one’s own roots. A story between traditional and modern feminisms against the backdrop of Idi Amin’s violent regime in Uganda in the 1970s.