2019 is a significant year in terms of German history, both actual and literary. It’s
• 30 years since the Fall of the Wall;
• 100 years since the Founding of the Weimar Republic; and
• 200 years since publication of Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan.
Caroline and I have decided to include all of the above into the plan for GLM IX!
To commemorate The Fall of the Wall there will be an ex-DDR week. For the founding of the Weimar Republic, the badge has been converted to Bauhaus-favoured sans serif typography and we will host a readalong of Alfred Döblin’s seminal Berlin Alexanderplatz. Last, but definitely not least, there will be a Goethe Reading Week.
There will also be plenty of read-as-you-please time so you can choose from the whole gamut of German-language literary pleasures (writing from outside Germany, historical and crime fiction, graphic novels, etc) entirely according to your heart’s desire.
The reading schedule looks like this:
01-02.11.19 Read as You please
03-09.11.19 Ex-DDR week
10-16.11.19 Read as You Please
17-23.11.19 Goethe Reading Week
24-30.11.19 Read as You Please
The Berlin Alexanderplatz readalong will take place on 4 Saturdays commencing on 9.11. More details and sign-up post to follow shortly.
As always, to participate in German Literature Month you can stick to the plan, pick and choose only the parts that interest you, or follow your own path entirely. You can read in any language you want. The only rule is that whatever you read must have originally been published in German.
All that remains now, is for you to search through your shelves, your library catalogues or maybe undertake a shopping expedition! German Literature Month IX will be here before you know it! Will you join us?
I’ve got something lined up, as usual (still in the planning stages…).
Thought so ….
I’ll definitely try to join in but I don’t know with what yet! 😀
That’s why we give plenty of notice. 😉
Recently I took a break from blogging, but I intend to participate again this time. I haven’t made up my mind yet which books I plan to review. Great that you and Caroline are hosting this event again!
Happy to have you with us once more, Thomas.
It’s also 80 years from the start of the Second World War.
I’m in. Many thanks for your time and effort.
Excellent news.
I can hardly believe it’s been 30 years since the fall of the Wall. I was teaching in what was then West Germany, and I will never forget visiting the Wall, where we told it the East Germans were told it was for their safety…to keep the West Germans out, not the East Germans in. At any rate, my landlord’s grandfather came from East Germany on a vacation, and the wall was finished when he was away from home. He never saw his family again. I am so glad to have had experience living there, seeing the bullet holes still in the walls, and the lack of men my father’s age as so many were killed in the war.
I look forward to reading for this event, as I do every year.
I visited the wall in January 1980. It was -21C with a light dusting of snow. Cold, cheerless and foreboding. Will never forget those empty flats on Bernauer Straße, just beside the wall. People used to jump from the windows onto the street below, which was in the West.
Looking forward to your company during November. 😁
Hi Lizzy,
Tried to leave a message but had fit with Word Press.
I’d love to participate in The Berlin Alexanderplatz readalong, and will try to make that happen. Wishing you the best, and thanking you and Caroline so much for all the work you do for this November event. Thanks!
I’m in! How did I never know about this before?? I love the idea of DDR week. I don’t think I can manage the readalong, but I will be reading Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Willehalm. https://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2019/10/november-reading-events.html
Welcome. The more the merrier 😉
Getting my reading ideas ready. Will do an introductory post soon.