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.

Kaufhaus, das ich nach 29 Jahre Berlin nicht kenne,* macht Werbung mit Schriftsteller:innen! Die meisten kommen aus der Schweiz. Ich bin so verwirrt. Writers are cool now? Writers wear expensive clothes? Writers are stylish? No offence, but these have not been my observations.

Seit Mai 2025 werden auf Weisung von Alexander Dobrindt an der deutschen Grenze Asylsuchende (widerrechtlich) zurückgewiesen. Habt ihr auch schon bemerkt, wie dadurch die Wirtschaft aufblüht, wie Lebensmittel, Mieten und Strom wieder bezahlbar werden und ihr mehr Geld in der Tasche habt? Eben.

As my mum would say: What are you all going to wear once it gets cold? #BerlinSeptember

Enjoy this trip Enjoy this trip Enjoy this trip And it is a trip

Die erste Fassung unseres Vergesellschaftungsgesetzes ist da. Es ist das erste Gesetz zur konkreten Anwendung von Artikel 15 des Grundgesetzes – Ein historischer Moment! In einem Gesetzesvolksentscheid können die Berliner*innen über das Gesetz abstimmen. 💜💛

It’s here! Such an honour to be publishing another book by Loranne and to have edited Kat’s epic translation 🚀 Order here www.praspar.com/product/befo... or get your local bookshop to get some Praspar Press in!

They insisted on the clause, I slept on it and backed out of the deal. It’s a bit sad because it would have been an exciting screenwriting project, but it feels like the right decision.

So proud of myself: instead of firing off a furious expletive-laden email in response to an unreasonable contract demand… I wrote an extremely lengthy emotive response explaining how copyright works and summoning up the spirit of collaboration. In the knowledge that I can walk away—their loss.

Join us, Berliners, as we launch this rusty wreck of a novel. You should read it because it’s relentless and beautiful and painful and radical. Long may she sail!

This photo is everything!! (Alaa with his remarkable mother Dr. Laila Soueif, who spent nearly 300 days on hunger strike to secure her son's release)

Please mark your calendars and join us for this year’s German Literature Month. #GermanLitMonth.

🤯 In Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg haben fast zwei Drittel der Menschen (64,7%) kein Auto. Die BVG-Fahrpreiserhöhungen treffen hier ins Mark. Transport und Wohnen machen uns arm.

One of many reasons why I don’t plan to return to the UK: Half of the influential people went to a small pool of fee-paying schools. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I 💜 this so much. Clemens J. Setz is such a fascinating thinker: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Now that I’m probably not going to do any more DJing ever, I just thought of a new DJ name: DJ Mashed Potaty Katy. (Old name with Steph Morris was DJs Lang & Scheidt, after the dictionary and my technical skill level.)

Still waiting on the Prime Minister’s statement condemning the huge, violent, Nazi mob that attacked police officers in London…

In 1990s Germany, there was a strategy called “accepting youth work” where social workers just accepted that young people were Nazis, let them use spaces and resources, etc. It didn’t go well for anyone but the Nazis. I think European politicians should do the opposite.

Our NFLB summer literature festival was excellent, if I do say so myself. We had readings from members and guests, a book swap, a hidden exhibition, performance and food. (Our work is advocating for literature and its makers in Berlin: nflb.de)

Queen of Spades, 1909, by Margaret Macdonald, one of the defining artists of Art Nouveau and the Glasgow School #WomensArt

I thought I was losing it but I finally checked, 5 pages before the end of the 100-page chapter I’m translating, and it wasn’t even in the manuscript I read last year. Not sure how Clemens Meyer sneaked it in the book so quickly, but it definitely ties up a few loose ends! #amtranslating

Today I wrote more than 100 rejection emails and tried to be kind about it. A few sweet writers said thanks anyway and they’re looking forward to the anthology 🩷

Night-time me needs to have more faith that day-time me will get shit done.

#OtD 2 Aug 1939 Walter Altmann and Gunther Mann, two Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, were deported from the UK back to Belgium where they had crossed the Channel in a small dinghy which capsized. Both were likely sent to the concentration camps stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9167...