Programmarchiv

Reading and Discussion

European Young Literature Berlin is part of a series of events, readings and publications stretching from Paris, Matera, Stockholm to Berlin.

European Young Literature started in late 2021 and is an initiative from the Swedish publishing house Spleen Nordic to build platforms in Europe for literature beyond the mainstream. The emphasis is not geographical but on European literature as tradition and quality. »Young« has nothing to do with age, it is »young« in the sense of the Old Greeks, rejuvenating souls – also the saviour of the dead in our present time, here alive, forever young… Spleen Nordic Series encapsulates the words of Walter Benjamin: »Our life, it can be said, is a muscle strong enough to contract the whole of historical time.«

In Berlin we invite some of the most exciting literary voices, from a variety of ages and background, stretching over a series of continents, from Chile in the South to Norway in the North, to perform poetry and literature.

Tickets kaufen

The reading will be performed in English and German. Moderators for the evening will be Mats O. Svensson and Ulf Peter Hallberg.

TOMÁS COHEN is a writer, translator, visual artist and curator from Chile. He has published two books of poetry. His poems have been translated into six languages. He has co-organised the multilingual reading series Hafenlesung in Hamburg and is artistic director of VOCATIONS.

 

STEFANIE GEROLD, translator of Spanish literature, including the works of Max Aub and Elsa Osorio. She also writes essays on intercultural topics; her radio play Come Back was broadcasted by Deutschlandfunk. Das Lächeln der Königin (Galiani, 2024) is her first novel. She lives in Berlin.

 

ULF PETER HALLBERG is a Swedish writer living in Berlin since 1983. He has written 10 novels, translated into seven languages. Works in theatre and film; translations of Shakespeare, Walter Benjamin, German, English and French playwrights. His latest novel The messenger from the North will be published by Gallimard in 2025.

 

ERLAND KIØSTERUD is a Norwegian writer and novelist. His oeuvre contains 24 novels and 5 essay collections. In his essays and novels the last 15 years he explores the violence we live by and possible transitions from human centred to nature centred ways of thinking, living, and making art.

 

KLAUS-JÜRGEN LIEDTKE, author, (Die versunkene Welt, 2008; Nachkrieg und die Trümmer von Ostpreußen, 2018), translator from Swedish and Danish, as well as editor for the virtual Baltic see library: www.balticsealibrary.info. He has been rewarded with several prices, including »Paul-Celan-Preis« (2005) and »Ginko Biloba Preis für Übersetzung von Lyrik« (2022).

 

RIKE SCHEFFLER works transdisciplinary in the fields of poetry, performance, installation and music. In their latest poetry collection Lava. Rituale (kookbooks, 2023), poems from speculative more-than-human future communities are manifesting new and tender ways of being.

 

MATS O. SVENSSON is a literary critic, translator and works as an editor for the pan-Scandinavian cultural magazine Vagant. His long essay Dawn After the Wreck is being translated into French for publication by Spleen Nordic Books. He has lived in Berlin since 2015.

 

SASKIA VOGEL is an author and a literary translator from Swedish and German into English. as well as editor of the “Erotic Review”. Her novel Permission (published in English, Spanish, Italian and Swedish in 2019) was longlisted for “The Believer Book Award”. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she lives in Berlin.