0 min 70 min
Sloth
Germany
Fritz had met ‘that Hilda woman’ in a bar called Paradise Now – sheer chance, really. He never usually went to places like that. For years he had been rotating among three or four pubs and...
Sloth
Eva Menasse
13 min
We Were Fishing For Rockets
Germany
You pressed your Nazi grandfather’s signet ring into my hand and asked me to throw it in the sea or some other body of water. Because you couldn’t. And I said: I’m not doing that; he...
We Were Fishing For Rockets
Karen Köhler
9 min
The Great Illusion at Klingenreiter Lumber Sawmill and Woodworking Import Export
Germany
When Ferdinand Klingenreiter asked the audience, dear friends and family, boys and girls, to be quiet for his great illusion, some laughed; most went on talking. The Stadelmann girls interrupted their squealing chase and turned towards...
The Great Illusion at Klingenreiter Lumber Sawmill and Woodworking Import Export
Saša Stanišić
16 min
Shades of Grey
Germany
What do you want here? say the eyes. Stern eyes. The mouth just says, ‘Room number twelve is upstairs.’ Then she has to go, the hotel’s stern receptionist. Only loneliness is sleeping here tonight. No other...
Shades of Grey
Anna Prizkau
8 min
The Architect
Germany
When they woke up in the morning the architect was already sitting at his computer. His office was in the right wing of the building; they lived in the left wing. The light was on all...
The Architect
Maxim Biller
10 min
Nowhere Else
Germany
Holger’s parents had already gone to bed. The taste of unfamiliar toothpaste on my tongue, I was sitting on the duvet in my pyjamas. Holger was standing by the aquarium and feeding the guppies. ‘Oh no,...
Nowhere Else
Matthias Brandt
14 min
Possible Paths
Germany
I write: Vera’s coat has a button missing – the dog got it. She looks over my shoulder. One day he’ll get me, too, says Vera, you’ll see. I say: Don’t be silly.   The dog...
Possible Paths
Margarita Iov
9 min
The Fat Girl
Germany
It was the end of January, not long after the Christmas holidays, when the fat girl came to me. That winter I had started lending books to the children from the neighbourhood, who were supposed to...
The Fat Girl
Marie Luise Kaschnitz
10 min
The Beautiful Thieves
Germany
Later in the night he saw, strangely, the picture of himself as he had been before she came. He thought: ‘She has power to wake the dead.’  –Karen Blixen, “Tempests”   Airport, present day, night-time In...
The Beautiful Thieves
Martin Kluger
15 min
Motherdeath
Germany
Mother disappeared on the twentieth of August nineteen ninety-eight at around eleven fifty at night. At around eight thirty in the morning of the twenty-first of August nineteen ninety-eight, Father called and informed me: ‘Mother died...
Motherdeath
Michael Lentz
22 min
Gym Period
Germany
The military school of St. Severin. The gymnasium. The class in their white cotton shirts stand in two rows under the big gas lights. The gym teacher, a young officer with a hard, swarthy face and...
Gym Period
Rainer Maria Rilke
7 min
The Sandman
Germany
NATHANIEL TO LOTHAIRE. Certainly you must all be uneasy that I have not written for so long—so very long. My mother, I am sure, is angry, and Clara will believe that I am passing my time...
The Sandman
E.T.A. Hoffmann
69 min
Double Grave
Germany
We stood with Gerschom Scholem at the grave of his parents and brothers in the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee. It was cold – it was December. Gerschom Scholem and Fania, his wife, were wearing light coats,...
Double Grave
Barbara Honigmann
8 min
The Onlookers
Germany
Let’s see if the forests catch fire again. Let’s see if intense heat rushes toward us. Let’s see if smoke drives animals whose names we don’t know out of the bushes. Let’s see if that leaves...
The Onlookers
Kathrin Röggla
19 min
Prenzlauer Berg by Night (Nothing Doing)
Germany
That night I ran into the fox again at the corner of my road, just after one. And like the last time, he stopped and turned his head towards me and we stared at each other...
Prenzlauer Berg by Night (Nothing Doing)
Annett Gröschner
17 min
Outside the Door
Germany
I go out in the yard with the dog. Just after two in the morning and the night’s very warm; the summer’s come back again this August after a long cool and rainy stretch. The hottest...
Outside the Door
Clemens Meyer
16 min

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