I love Arundhati Roy's courage, integrity, intelligence, and her artistry as a writer of fiction & nonfiction. Wim Wenders, the jury chair, on being questioned about Gaza, said filmmakers have to stay out of politics. Roy said a genocide demands a response from everyone, artists included. I agree.

Art has political influence, don’t pretend otherwise. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Back in Berlin from London, spreading the joy of friendliness to strangers on the U-Bahn!

A magazine editor likes one of my (three and a half existing) stories. I am rereading the email obsessively. I feel like a bit of a cheat but if you count my translations then I’ve actually been writing for about 20 years, so I need to stop feeling that way.

Sundays seem to be short-story writing days now.

Yikes! Christa Wolf met her Stasi handlers in an “unofficial room” in the building where I go for physio. I don’t know whether they used du or Sie.

I’ve written a teeny story for this event, a low-stakes experiment. I’ll be on stage anyway talking about translating Christa Wolf. sites.google.com/view/mayroec...

The physio guy forgot we switched to Du last time, until he was in the middle of applying these Hammer horror electric suction cups to my arm.

Don't know why I'm so irrationally annoyed by all the "January is too long, boo hoo" tweets. Our enemy is not January; our enemy is THE RELENTLESS PASSAGE OF TIME. Do you want to hasten our trajectory towards death? Is that what you want?

WE WANT YOUR PROSE—submit now to read at our Feb 21 Lettrétage event about Christa Wolf (and her post-Wall writing e.g. One Day A Year). Send us some short prose in any language about the day, the daily, the recurring date, everyday politics. We will print a zine! sites.google.com/view/mayroec...

Top tip: don’t put kumpir inside your coat to get it home warm in freezing Berlin weather. It doesn’t work AND it leaks.

Unlocked duzing the physiotherapist ✅

I wrote another short story. So much fun, concentrating on one thing for hours and enjoying where it takes me. I was so happy and excited about it I couldn’t sleep for ages.

Aber wie kommen wir an die Kartoffeln?

Bandcamp has banned AI music. The company has released a statement which includes the following: "Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp." stereogum.com/2485199/band...

Open AI loses copyright case in Germany. Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."

The thing that depresses me in the whole AI revolution in my industry (I’m a literary translator and publisher) is that the question is not whether machines can replace human translators, but how will we deal with the fallout after machines are forcibly introduced regardless.

Danced to this top tune for the first time, asked the DJ what it was, came home and realized I have it on an album. #Maytals 1974 version. youtu.be/npcnm9yOQZU?...

You’ve all read this, yes? www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

I have a FIRST DRAFT! Of my short story. I’m completely besotted with it. Everybody must love every single word of it, surely. Now I have to leave it to rest so I can fall out of love and look at it critically.

I have started my attempt to write a short story. It’s so different to translating and writing screenplays — so few constraints. But it’s its own kind of fun. Describing things! Structure! Plot! Not overdoing the adjectives! Finding good verbs (that’s part of translating too though).

In 2026 I’m going to see if I can write a short story.

By a process of trial and error, I have established that you’re supposed to use the *formal* you with your physiotherapist. Even though they’re touching you the whole time and introduced themself by their first name.

Ich möchte in einer Gesellschaft leben, in der Menschen auf der Flucht geholfen wird und ihnen ermöglicht wird, sich an sicheren Orten niederzulassen. Keine Lager, keine Pushbacks. Sichere Fluchtwege und das Recht zu bleiben.

Maybe I’ll try to use social media more like someone who has no wish or need to get a US visa.

I’m doing very well at buying myself things and pretty poorly at buying gifts for other people.

Germany’s association of family-owned companies says it will now hold talks with far-right AfD.

In my safe and comfortable Berlin home, I’ve been reading that the building was once one of those to which Jews were forcibly rehoused. The rooms will have been shared by multiple tenants, struggling for space and survival while performing forced labour. zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context

Dammbruch im EU-Parlament: Erstmals beschließt eine Mehrheit aus Konservativen und Rechtsextremen - also auch CDU, CSU und AfD eine Gesetzesposition. Damit werden u.a. Kinderarbeit und Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Lieferketten gefördert. Vollkommen verheerend. Schämt euch, CDU und CSU.

Just found a gorgeous photo of me and Mr #WalletOnAChain looking gorgeous at last weekend’s northern soul weekender, and I can’t stop looking at it. Such an ego boost.

Normalize having a book on your bookshelf that, when pulled, opens the door to a secret room.

What do other people think about those literary events where writers appear to talk openly about their own lives? It often feels uncomfortable to me, I think because surely they’re holding back, and surely these are polished lines? That fake intimacy, the pretense of conversation.

Berliner CDU www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/auf-d...

We watched the Thursday Murder Club movie. It was like they’d never met a real old person. All the actors looked sheepish about being in such a pile-of-cliches movie — or maybe I thought they should. And we hated all the music, especially the last song.

Today I went to see the Amrum movie. It was very beautiful and had a great narrative structure, and all the elderly Germans in the crowded cinema had big feelings about it. Then they literally *all* stayed sitting down to watch the credits to the very end, while I fidgeted and looked at my phone.

Now we watched the Kafka movie, which featured a bit too much Peter Kürth for my taste and about two too many ideas (animation; gruesome “In the Penal Colony” scene) but was otherwise fun.

Enjoyed how much music they squeezed into the Bob Dylan movie. And I liked the folk festival organizer argument scenes.

Does anyone have a TLS subscription? We need this review in full, as we teeter on the edge of our seats: www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

Due to a massive adrenaline comedown, I could only traipse the streets of Hamburg swathed in wan melancholy, and didn’t make it to a good bookshop. I bought Elif Shafak in the station bookstore instead. Next time! (The event went well but sometimes that’s harder to come down from.)

TONIGHT: head to @bklynlibrary.bsky.social to hear about the novel László Krasznahorkai called “magnificent”, Krisztina Tóth’s EYE OF THE MONKEY

I am on my way to HAMBURG to do an event, but I’ve nearly finished the book I’m reading. Where should I go for a new one tomorrow morning?

Stadtbild kann ich überbieten. Faschisten haben schon immer mein ganzes Weltbild gestört. Und jetzt?

In unserem Stadtbild ist alles in Ordnung. Das Problem liegt in Ihrem Weltbild, Herr #Merz

Read an incredible, hefty, brief novel about loss in all its kinds - loss of self, of hope, of love, of life... Every Time We Say Goodbye by Ivana Sajko: triumphofthenow.com/2025/10/10/e...

Looking forward to hosting tomorrow in Berlin

Being a translator is great. I made this description exist in English: “a multiply married Muslim on the lookout for a buxom Saxon to add to his harem” It’s a rumour spread by locals in an East German town about a newly arrived stranger, in Clemens Meyer’s The Projectionists. #amtranslating

Annual reminder that without literary translators, most Nobel Prize-winning authors couldn’t be read by the committee/readers, so celebrate them too. Congrats @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social et al! This isn’t taking away from the author, it’s adding recognition of the miracle/labour/skill of translation.

Oooooh, @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social !

Sorry to use you as a dumping ground, but I just talked to a guy who’s thinking about getting into literary translation by “using software” and post-editing. Because it would be too time consuming the long way. He was also unimpressed by my suggestion that good translation takes practice.