Book Review

Dilek Güngör: A wie Ada

A review by Katy Derbyshire Dilek Güngör’s latest book launched a fortnight ago at a packed Berlin event, where the love flowing back and forth between the stage and the audience was palpable. Dilek – full disclosure: I think we’re friends, we’ve definitely been for a coffee together and I’ve translated an essay she wrote,

Irina Liebmann: Berliner Mietshaus

A review by Katy Derbyshire I’m a major fan of the writer Irina Liebmann, especially her dogged devotion to one particular street in Berlin, about which more in a later post. The very first of her books that I read, however, was Berliner Mietshaus. It has been extremely cold in Berlin lately, the kind of

Cover of the book Gesammeltes Schweigen, with the authors' names and red snippets of tape

Heinrich Böll and Sharon Dodua Otoo: Gesammeltes Schweigen

By Katy Derbyshire This is a beautiful book combining a short satire by everyone’s favourite German 20th-century writer, reflections by one of my favourite 21st-century German writers, and lashings of typographical ginger beer. Like me, Sharon Dodua Otoo read a bit of Böll for her German A-Level. In her case, it was his short story

Dinner for Five

Teresa Präauer: Kochen im falschen Jahrhundert A review by Katy Derbyshire Seeing as this is an old-school blog, I must start with a full disclosure: ten years ago I went Dutch with Teresa Präauer, drinking beer, Fernet Branca and pastis. It was a delightful evening, cementing my view of the Austrian author as a very