Out today!

If you're traveling this summer, you'll need to be aware of the primary dangers: delays at passport processing, heat stroke, the hypothetical constellation/planet/?? known as the shukur yulduz...

We're into the last few hours of our fundraiser! — https://publicdomainreview.org/support/. If you like what we do, and would like to see it continue, then please do consider donating. We are a not-for-profit endeavour and rely on your donations to keep the project alive.

Next month, under the auspices of @cabinetmagazine.bsky.social, Sally O'Reilly et al. will have 10 hours to make a musical about the history of hurrying. As proof of concept, she managed to answer over 10 questions from @return2sanders.bsky.social in 10 minutes:

Carlo Ginzburg est mort, annonce la presse italienne. Immense historien, il a su construire une oeuvre originale entre micro-histoire et anthropologie historique qui a considérablement renouvelé la discipline. www.repubblica.it/cultura/2026...

I wrote a little essay – and then some experimental poems – about Banjo Paterson, the terrible Australian poet I somehow can't get out of my head

Very proud to be publishing @ajbwells.bsky.social's ingenious piece on Banjo Paterson, 'the best-known and least-liked poet in Australia'. Please read and share widely!

"Yes, I wanted to foreground the idea of erased history—of stories not told." I interviewed Dženana Vucic for this month's AUFLAUF about her debut book, the limits of memoir, and interlingual poetry >> theauflauf.substack.com/p/dzenana-vu...

'I don’t feel like I can write about anything else, honestly. I feel really compelled by the question of why, and how do we stop. Is it possible to be better? That question haunts everything I do.' @dzenanabanana.bsky.social talks to @ajbwells.bsky.social about their debut collection, after war:

just fyi you won't be able to understand the stakes of Netherlands vs Japan tonight without understanding their 17th-century commercial and intellectual exchanges:

Method acting is for squares. True artists know that the Delsarte System, which in the late nineteenth century revolutionized the dramatic arts, is the only way to portray real emotion:

i spent my Sunday evening some very important international diplomacy (tasting chip flavors of the world) and @heistberlin.bsky.social's got the dispatch: www.heistberlin.com/lays-potato-...

Berlin weekender — 16th & 17th October ft. @wordkunst.bsky.social Lauren Oyler @elusiveword.bsky.social Ryan Ruby @davidhering.bsky.social @mortenhoijensen.bsky.social @lucykulwiec.bsky.social Jared Pollen @minxmarple.bsky.social @gabrielflynn.bsky.social Martin Lechner, Donna Stonecipher ...

shout out (as ever) to @yanina.bsky.social for the posters, and a huge, huge thank you to our friends @ajbwells.bsky.social and @mathildegm.bsky.social @ The Auflauf, without whom this wouldn't be happening

City Chicken vs City Chicken: Berlin's brutal and bloody rotisserie feud that's spawned lawsuits, criminal investigations and landed one chicken tycoon in prison for torture... www.heistberlin.com/news/nhas-ci...

Some pictures from our latest Immer Schon event at Lettretage… this time we were talking about Sebald and I read from A DREAM OF WHITE HORSES (@ofmooseandmen.bsky.social)… it was a fun evening! @marcelkrueger.bsky.social @ajbwells.bsky.social @juliabosson.bsky.social @return2sanders.bsky.social

8:30 on Saturday at Lettrétrage (Veteranenstrasse 21): we‘re chatting about the very alive literary legacy of Sebald. There’ll be some convo, some readings, some CRISIS perhaps—but all in all it should be a GOOD TIME!

Aesthetics was definitely prioritized over clarity in these Turkish infographics from the 1920s, but it's okay because they're the best you've ever seen. My latest for @publicdomainrev.bsky.social:

I had the absolute pleasure to speak with Maggie O'Farrell about her excellent new novel, LAND, and how it inadvertently addresses "one of today's most potent political stances: Where do you stand on people arriving in your country or people leaving your country?" www.cntraveler.com/story/for-he...

In this month's AUFLAUF: - The most depressing street in all Berlin - Rock, funk, and Yes - Northanger Abbey references - Good poetry - Long-awaited John Owen debut - What are history books for? - Gossip columnist seeks hotspot theauflauf.substack.com/p/june-books...

Looking for new perspectives on German history? This month's reviews: @ajbwells.bsky.social on rock in the GDR, me on Alice Miller's search for her family's story, and John Owen on interwar Weimar (the city, not the republic).

Meine Recherche zum ELNET, der größten Israel-Lobby-Organisation in Europa, zuerst in @thediasporist.bsky.social erschienen, ist jetzt bei @monde-diplomatique.fr auf Französisch zu lesen!

.@James_J_Conway on Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering 1904 study of queer Berlin: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/out-on-the-town

Berliners! We’re spending a fine June evening talking about Sebald and then listening some great new writing in the spirit of all we’ll have chatted about. Join us? @marcelkrueger.bsky.social @madeleinewatts.bsky.social @return2sanders.bsky.social @ajbwells.bsky.social @juliabosson.bsky.social

"Johann had taken issue with the use of the word murdered. Johann—a theologian—who loathes violence in all its forms! I voiced my surprise. I was not the only one. What could be so wrong with saying murdered?" A thoughtful short story about teaching in Germany, translated by @ajbwells.bsky.social.

Very excited to read my translation of a Berlinerish short story by the hilarious Rasha Abbas!

READER LINEUP ANNOUNCEMENT -> Matthews -> Olbrich -> Montpetit/Abbas -> Raphael - > one more SECRET LEGEND don't miss out, 6/6, oh & it's free

working on a novel idea called PERFECTERYEAR about a berlin yuppie bloke with a penchant for french workers jackets who then gets magically transported to a st. etienne metallurgy plant during the trente glorieuses

Had a great time digging into the @miamiuniversity.bsky.social student newspaper archives to figure out what was going on with their brief turn-of-the-century pushball tradition:

“Such a game as the gods on Olympus might have played without great loss of dignity.” The early 20th-century game played with a 6-foot, 70-pound ball: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/pushball/

Surreal to see this in the acknowledgments of YESTERYEAR. I'd been wondering throughout why the protagonist was dark-haired rather than Ballerina Farm blonde, and seems like it was intentionally to tee up Hathaway to start in the film adaptation. Is this where we're at now?

Fascinating interview by @return2sanders.bsky.social on Herta Müller's poetics, AI, the memory of Communism, and the sticky discomfort of Müller's bad politics:

Copperplate engravings derived from Chinese and Japanese diagrams of acupuncture and moxa points, featured in Willem ten Rhijne’s De Acupunctura (1693). More in our latest post: publicdomainreview.org/collection/de-acupunctura/undefined... And prints here: publicdomainreview.org/shop/search/?...

Wrote about a Dutch East India Company physician's attempt to figure out how acupuncture works – while essentially living on a prison off Nagasaki:

For anyone in & around Berlin: this is the last week to submit to read at our upcoming (6/6) event about Sebald and the various legacies of his work - texts are welcome in any language!! www.lettretage.de/programm/seb...

In the AUFLAUF review mail this month: - Karaoke - Fascist afterlives - Very good literature - Pick-me-girls - Books cost 20c a page now??? - Finally the truth about the Limerick Writers Center theauflauf.substack.com/p/may-books-...

Register now for Wednesday's webinar! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I read a bunch of Wolfgang Koeppen and—you know what?—it was really good. Lots more here in the latest issue of our freshly baked literary casserole.

Some great reviews this month: @brynstole.bsky.social on Wolfgang Koeppen's post-war trilogy, @return2sanders.bsky.social on Paul Celan's still-mesmerising ephemera, and myself on Polly Barton's novel of expat life and karaoke and translation:

Gallery Weekend Berlin starts tomorrow. Here’s where to go. www.heistberlin.com/art-heist-gu...

The Monster of Cracow. One of many strange marvels featured in a beautifully illuminated copy (made for Elizabeth I) of Pierre Boaistuau’s Histoires Prodigieuses. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/histoires-prodigieuses/ (and prints in our shop too).

Two wonderful short pieces by @return2sanders.bsky.social and @marcelkrueger.bsky.social: one about the immanence of early fatherhood, the other about the agonies of facing the past.

P.S. save the date ...

Our first PDR Press Mini: The perfect pocket Proust — the spellbinding opening section of Swann’s Way, including the most famous conjunction of cake and tea in 20th-c fiction.⁠ Available for 25% off in our pre-sale (until April 29), along with 2 other titles publicdomainreview.org/shop/pdr-pre...

Hilda Hoy might just be able to change the way you think about multilingualism, migration and motherhood – I had a wonderful time talking with her about her memoir MOTHER TONGUE, just out from @windandbones.com.

"My god, it took a genocide for people to want to know what's going on." This weekend, Mudar Al-Khufash is staging his lecture-performance Dialectics of Erasure at the Berliner Ringtheater. @return2sanders.bsky.social spoke to him for HEIST www.heistberlin.com/i-am-not-cen...

Wrote about the U.S.'s first experimental film, which is about twice as experimental as you're imagining and was shot in a barn by a group of amateurs: