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Events

In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut and other partners in New York, the GBO arranges readings, discussions, and seminars.

December 2008

German Book Office 10th Anniversary Party
When?	December 9th, 2008 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 p.m.
Where?	Melville House 145 Plymouth St., Brooklyn, NY 11201
Save the date! The German Book Office is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and would like you to come celebrate with us.

November

The GBO Recommends a Reading at Idlewild Books:
When?	November 5th, 2008, 7:00pm
Where?	Idlewild Books 12 West 19th Street New York, NY 10011
Author Leonie Swann reads from her bestselling mystery: Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story, and talks with former National Book Critics Circle president John Freeman. Leonie Swann made a stunning splash with her first novel, Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story. When George, a well-loved Irish shepherd who reads to his flock, is found dead in the meadow with a spade in his chest, Miss Maple, ruminating, intelligent sheep that she is, enlists the help of various members of her flock in finding out who did George in. With her mix of humor and insight, Swann manages to convince the reader that even given their woolgathering inclinations, sheep can set their minds on finding a killer when there’s mischief ahoof. Author Leonie Swann was born in 1975 and studied philosophy, psychology and English literature in Munich and Berlin. Glennkill. Ein Schafskrimi, won the Friedrich-Glauser-Preis for best debut novel and has been translated into 20 languages John Freeman is a former president of the National Book Critics Circle. His reviews, essays and interviews have appeared in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times Book Review. RSVP: events@idlewildbooks.com

September

Mirko Bonné at the Brooklyn Book Festival
When?	Sunday, September 14, 1:00PM
Where?	International Center Stage at the Brooklyn Book Festival
At 1:00 PM at the International Center State, author Mirko Bonné, along with his translator Philip Boehm, will be speaking about his upcoming book DER EISKALTE HIMMEL (THE ICE-COLD HEAVEN). Mirko Bonné, born 1965 in Tegernsee, lives in Hamburg. He has translated poetry by Keats, E.E. Cummings and W. B. Yeats, and has published several novels and volumes of poetry. Mirko Bonné has, among others, won the Wolfgang Weyrauch Award, the Ernst Willner Award, the Kunstpreis Berlin Emerging Talent Award, and most recently the Literature Scholarship by Deutscher Literaturfonds in New York and the French Prix Relay du Roman d'Evasion. Philip Boehm is the author of numerous translations from Polish and German, including works by Franz Kafka, Ida Fink, and Christoph Hein. Based in St. Louis, he is also a playwright and theater director. In 2004, Philip Boehm received a PEN Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Christoph Hein's Landnahme. An excerpt from his work was printed in PEN America 6: Metamorphoses. For more information on Bonne and his forthcoming book, go to: www.schoeffling.de For more information on the Brooklyn book festival, go to: www.brooklynbookfestival.org

May

Archipelago Books Celebration
When?	6:30 to 8:30 pm on Wednesday, May 21
Where?	Idlewild Books 12 West 19th Street (between 5th and 6th aves.)
Admission	This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to post@gbo.org or 212-794-2851.
Archipelago Books celebrates its new release of two classic German titles in English: Travel Pictures by Heinrich Heine (translated by Peter Wortsman) and Hyperion by Friedrich Hölderlin (translated by Ross Benjamin). There will be a wine and cheese reception, accompanied by a live violin performance by Leah Swann.

Buzz Panel and Luncheon
When?	12:30 pm on Friday, May 23
Where?	Deutsches Haus at NYU 42 Washington Mews (at University Place)
Admission	This event is for book publishing professionals
This is the first GBO Buzz Panel and Luncheon to introduce the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Grant and a selection of new and noteworthy fiction from Germany. The panel will be moderated by Eric Banks, former editor of Bookforum and member of the National Book Critics Circle board. His writing appears in Men's Vogue, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. Brief presentations by Ross Benjamin, translator; Peter Constantine, translator; Markus Hoffmann, agent; Margot Dembo, translator; Edna McCown, translator; Tim Mohr, editor at Playboy magazine and translator; Michael Orthofer, editor of the Complete Review; Barbara Perlmutter, S. Fischer Verlag; Martin Rauchbauer, Deputy Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum; and Sasa Stanisic, Grove/Atlantic author.

May PEN Festival Events

PEN Festival presents Small World, Big Choices: A Program for High School Students
When?	10:00 am to 12:00 noon on Thursday, May 1
Where?	Instituto Cervantes New York 211-215 East 49th Street
Admission	This event is free but reservations are essential. For information on bringing your class to this event, please contact Stacy Leigh at 212-334-1660 ext. 109.
Participants: Marina Budhos, Michael Patrick MacDonald, Patricia McCormick, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Jutta Richter Traditional coming-of-age stories involve struggles with family, community, and self. But young adults often contend with antagonists of national or even global scope, such as political unrest, poverty, and cultural imperialism. A panel of award-winning authors reads stories of characters pressured by forces wholly out of their control. The writers talk about characters who make decisions and take action; about the global society, its benefits and discontents; and about literature as a force to counter society’s chronic ills. Cosponsored by Instituto Cervantes the Consulate General of Spain

PEN Festival presents Soldiers, Gramophones, and Brecht: A Literary Conversation
When?	2:30 pm to 3:30 pm on Thursday, May 1
Where?	Instituto Cervantes New York 211-215 East 49th Street
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Saša Stanišić and Gonçalo M. Tavares Whimsy and playfulness with language, setting, and point of view can often be effective ways to address difficult topics. Young novelists Saša Stanišić, born in 1978 in the former Yugoslavia, and Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, who won the 2005 Saramago Prize for writers under 35, discuss literary technique and tackling the big issues. Cosponsored by Instituto Cervantes and Consulate General of Spain

PEN Festival presents Publishers Weekly: On Translation
When?	6:00 pm to 7:30 pm on Thursday, May 1
Where?	Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Morgan Entrekin (Grove), Edwin Frank (NYRB), Halfdan Freihow (Font, Norway), and Michael Krüger (Hanser Verlag, Germany); moderated by Publishers Weekly editor Sara Nelson These publishers and editors have worked with an incredible array of literary giants, including Umberto Eco, José Saramago, Günter Grass, and Jeanette Winterson. Today they reflect on the new topicality of literature in translation and why Americans seem to have so much more trouble with it. Cosponsored by Publishers Weekly and the Martin E. Segal Theater Center, The Graduate Center, CUNY

PEN Festival presents Inside Out: The Public and Private Lives of Children
When?	6:00 pm to 7:30 pm on Thursday, May 1
Where?	Scholastic Auditorium 557 Broadway (near Prince Street)
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Sharon G. Flake, Jutta Richter, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Peter Sis. Moderated by Elizabeth Levy. What are children hiding when they answer questions this way? What is going on behind their one-word answers? Writers for children and young adults explore the emotional and often turbulent lives of children in their stories. These stories are sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, but each of the distinguished writers on this international panel realizes that children often understand a lot more than they are willing to express. How do writers convey the difference between a child’s private and public persona? The authors draw on their imaginations and memories of life in the Czech Republic, Germany, the American West, and this country’s inner cities and suburbs to explore the experiences and fantasy lives of children

PEN Festival presents The Art of Failure: A Discussion of Thomas Bernhard's Work
When?	7:00 pm to 8:30 pm on Thursday, May 1
Where?	Austrian Cultural Forum New York 11 East 52nd Street
Admission	Free and open to the public. However, reservations are required. Please call ACF's reservation line at 212-319-5300 ext. 222 or email reservations@acfny.org.
Participants: Paul Holdengräber, Director of Public Programs at The New York Public Library; novelist and critic Dale Peck; novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya, author of Revulsion: Thomas Bernhard in San Salvador; and Fatima Naqvi, Associate Professor of German at Rutgers University. Moderated by Jonathan Taylor. Bernhard’s strenuous confrontation with the futility of satisfactorily completing—or even beginning—a written work has made him a stern yet liberating influence on writers who think critically about their art and realistically about its place in modern societies. Join us for this discussion of Bernhard’s work and his exaltation of artistic failure.

PEN Festival presents Something to Hide: Writers and Artists Against the Surveillance State
When?	9:00 pm on Thursday, May 1
Where?	Joe's Pub 425 Lafayette Street
Admission	$10/$8 PEN members. Visit www.joespub.com or call 212-967-7555.
Participants: György Dragomán, Asli Erdogan, Péter Esterházy, Chenjerai Hove, Irakli Kakabadze, and Ingo Schulze Join international and local guests for a special reading designed to provoke reflection on controversial post-9/11 government surveillance programs in the United States. PEN’s Campaign for Core Freedoms has joined with the American Civil Liberties Union and other leading human-rights organizations to challenge some of the government’s most pernicious infringements on basic human rights, working to restore privacy protections for bookstore and library records, fighting to end the FBI’s unchecked use of National Security Letters, and challenging warrantless telephone and Internet surveillance by the N.S.A. Writers will read from works that illuminate the ways government surveillance threatens artistic and intellectual freedom. Cosponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union

PEN Festival presents The Publisher, the Poet, the Editor, and His Novels
When?	12 noon to 2 pm on Friday, May 2
Where?	Deutsches Haus at NYU 42 Washington Mews at University Place
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Michael Krüger in conversation with Lila Azam Zanganeh of Le Monde Novelist, poet, and publisher Michael Krüger knows a lot about both sides of the book business. He has a distinguished record as head of the German publishing house Hanser Verlag and is editor of the influential journal Akzente. He has an equally glittering reputation as an award-winning novelist and a poet. His latest book, The Executor: A Comedy of Letters, is a witty, ironic, charming commentary on writers, their books, and their long-suffering friends. Today he’ll read from his work and talk about his lifelong love of literature. Cosponsored by the Deutsches Haus at NYU

PEN Festival presents Readings from Around the Globe
When?	1:30 pm to 2:30 pm on Friday, May 2
Where?	Austrian Cultural Forum New York 11 East 52nd Street
Admission	Free and open to the public. However, reservations are required. Please call ACF's reservation line at 212-319-5300 ext. 222 or email reservations@acfny.org.
Participants: Ana Castillo, Daniel Kehlmann, Kristín Ómarsdóttir, and Nina Revoyr Daniel Kehlmann is the best-selling author of Measuring the World and a leading light of the “new” German fiction. Icelandic poet, playwright, and novelist Kristín Ómarsdóttir is the author, most recently, of the play Tell Me Everything, which probes the borders between dreams and reality. Xicana author Ana Castillo (The Guardians, So Far from God) has been crossing frontiers for years—specifically, the troubled physical and psychic landscape separating the United States and Mexico. Nina Revoyr is the author of gritty West Coast noirs Southland and The Age of Dreaming, which straddle black and Japanese subcultures in mid-century Los Angeles. Cosponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum

PEN Festival presents Short Stories
When?	2:30 pm to 4:00 pm on Friday, May 2
Where?	Scandinavia House 58 Park Avenue
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Etgar Keret, Young-ha Kim, Ingo Schulze, and Abdourahman Waberi; moderated by Radhika Jones Four international writers discuss short fiction—why they write it, how the form appeals to them, where they see it going, and its differences across international borders in terms of reception and history. This panel will include brief readings. Cosponsored by The American-Scandinavian Foundation and The Paris Review

PEN Festival presents Crossing Borders
When?	3:30 pm to 5:00 pm on Friday, May 2
Where?	Instituto Cervantes 211-215 East 49th Street
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Ana Castillo, Lieve Joris, Daniel Kehlmann, and Gonçalo M. Tavares; moderated by Lila Azam Zanganeh A discussion about boundaries—both physical and psychological—and a journey across borders into the cartography of different lands with Daniel Kehlmann, whose novel Measuring the World is the best-selling novel in German since Patrick Süskind’s Perfume; Lieve Joris, one of Europe’s leading travel writers, who has written widely of her journeys in the Middle East and Africa; and novelist Gonçalo M. Tavares, who teaches the theory of knowledge at the University of Lisbon. They’ll be joined by Le Monde’s Lila Azam Zanganeh. Cosponsored by Instituto Cervantes and the Consulate General of Spain

PEN Festival presents Leaving Home
When?	5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
Where?	Austrian Cultural Forum New York 11 East 52nd Street
Admission	Free and open to the public. However, reservations are required. Please call ACF's reservation line at 212-319-5300 ext. 222 or email reservations@acfny.org.
Participants: György Dragomán, Dinaw Mengestu, and Saša Stanišić; moderated by Irina Reyn Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics hosts a panel with debut novelists Dinaw Mengestu, György Dragomán, and Saša Stanišić, whose narrators recount escaping violence in their home countries only to be fraught with feelings of ambivalence in their adopted countries. Moderated by Irina Reyn, whose debut novel, What Happened to Anna K., will be published in August 2008, the panel will explore children as witnesses, the status of exile, and the role of fiction as a voice for multiculturalism. Cosponsored by Guernica and the Austrian Cultural Forum

PEN Festival presents Fiction from Fact
When?	12 noon to 1:30 pm on Saturday, May 3
Where?	Le Skyroom, The French Institute Alliance Française 22 East 60th Street
Admission	$12 Non-members/$8 FIAF/PEN members/students. at www.ticketmaster.com or 212-307--4100.
Participants: Jo Nesbø, Nina Revoyr, Saša Stanišić, Juan Gabriel Vásquez; moderated by Lila Azam Zanganeh Novelists are those rarest of literary alchemists, able to blend elements of historical fact with personal truths and intimate visions. From Nazi ties in Norway in the great Scandinavian crime fiction of Jo Nesbø to the lives of blacklisted Jewish immigrants in Colombia in Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s majesterial The Informers; from Japanese-Americans in central Los Angeles in Nina Revoyr’s multiracial noir thrillers to Bosnian refugees adrift in Germany in Saša Stanišić’s stunning debut, How the Soldier Repairs the Gramaphone—all of these writers have, in their own ways, helped to reclaim and reshape aspects of their countries’ histories. Cosponsored by the French Institute Alliance Française

PEN Festival presents Private Lives, Public Lives, Other Lives, New Lives
When?	1:00 pm to 2:30 pm on Saturday, May 3
Where?	Goethe-Institut New York 1014 Fifth Avene
Admission	Free and open to the public. No reservations.
Participants: Ingo Schulze and Eliot Weinberger Schulze is known as a chronicler of the multiple realities of East and West Germany of the late '80s and early '90s and, fittingly, his forthcoming novel, Neue Leben (New Lives) is several books in one. Schulze’s Enrico Türmer is a wannabe writer, dramaturge, newspaper editor, ad-circular publisher, and budding capitalist. The story of these different lives is told through the letters of this novel, collected and annotated by a character named Ingo Schulze. Schulze’s Handy: Dreizehn Geschichten in alter Manier (Cell Phone: Thirteen Stories in the Time-honored Mode), won the 2007 Fiction Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair. His works have been translated into 27 languages. Eliot Weinberger’s most recent books are What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles and An Elemental Thing, both published by New Directions. Cosponsored by the Goethe-Institut New York

PEN Festival presents Fractures: Psychic Rifts/Writerly Riffs
When?	3:00 pm to 4:30 pm on Saturday, May 3
Where?	Le Skyroom, The French Institute Alliance Française 22 East 60th Street
Admission	$12 Non-members/$8 FIAF/PEN members/students. at www.ticketmaster.com or 212-307--4100.
Participants: Young-Ha Kim, Amanda Michalopoulou, Evelyn Schlag, and Anja Sicking; and moderated by Victoria Redel Fragmentation, alienation, mental anguish, and collapse—how are the private woes of modern life expressed in the works of contemporary writers? Join us for a literary therapy session of sorts with South Korean author Young-Ha Kim, whose novel I Have the Right to Destroy Myself epitomized the anomie of '90s-era Seoul; acclaimed Austrian poet and essayist Evelyn Schlag, who’s been called “one of the most distinctive and subtle voices in contemporary German-language writing”; Dutch novelist Ana Sicking, author of The Silent Sin, a tale of music, obsession, and desire; and Greek author Amanda Michalopoulou, whose book of stories I’d Like seeks salvation in the act of writing. Moderated by Victoria Redel, author of The Border of Truth and Where the Road Bottoms Out, among other works. Cosponsored by the French Institute Alliance Française

PEN Festival presents A Tribute to Robert Walser
When?	4:00 pm to 5:30 pm on Saturday, May 3
Where?	Gilder Lehrman Hall, The Morgan Library and Museum 225 Madison Avenue
Admission	$15/$10 for Morgan Library & Museum and PEN members. www.smarttix.com or 212-868-4444.
Participants: Susan Bernofsky, Deborah Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eugenides, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Michael Krüger Through readings and discussion, poets and writers pay tribute to the strange genius of Robert Walser (1878–1956), the Swiss novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet, whose works include Jakob von Gunten, The Assistant, and Selected Stories. Pulitzer Prize–winning Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides), Deborah Eisenberg (Twilight of the Superheroes), Michael Krüger (The Executor), and poet and novelist Wayne Koestenbaum (Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films and The Milk of Inquiry) will be joined by translator Susan Bernofsky. Cosponsored by New Directions, The New York Review of Books, and The Morgan Library & Museum

PEN Festival presents The PEN Cabaret
When?	8:00 pm to 10:00 pm on Saturday, May 3
Where?	Webster Hall 125 East 11th Street
Admission	$30/$25 PEN members (limited number of tables available for $50 per person). www.smarttix.com or 212-868-4444. Government-issued photo ID required 21+.
Participants: John Wesley Harding, , Aleksandar Hemon, Sebastian Horsley, Bill T. Jones, Bea Palya, Erika Stucky, and special guests Swiss singer-songwriter Erika Stucky yodels like you’ve never heard before, and, of all things, plays a spade. Hungarian singer Bea Palya is making waves across the world with her brand of Hungarian and Bulgarian folk music, which draws inspiration from jazz as well as Persian and Hindi sung poems. Author Wesley Stace performs in his musical guise of John Wesley Harding. Bosnian-born author Aleksandar Hemon reads from his new novel, The Lazarus Project, while legendary dancer Bill T. Jones elevates the evening with a solo piece from his work Ballad. Let go of your inhibitions, unhitch your expectations, and surrender to a night of pure entertainment.

Appetizers Party: Austria, Germany and Switzerland at PEN
When?	8:00 pm on Saturday, May 3
Where?	Deutsches Haus at NYU 42 Washington Mews (at University Place)
Admission	Please RSVP to bela-nikolaus.buzasi@diplo.de.
To honor the German-speaking participants at the 2008 PEN World Voices Festival, several Austrian, German and Swiss organizations are hosting an "Appetizers" party. Regional wine, beer and snacks will be served. Come celebrate the PEN Festival with us!

PEN Festival presents A Conversation with Jeffrey Eugenides and Daniel Kehlmann
When?	2:00 pm on Sunday, May 4
Where?	South Court Auditorium, New York Public Library Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
Admission	$15/$10 PEN members, library donors, seniors, and students with valid identification. www.smarttix.com or 212-868-4444.
About Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel Middlesex, The New York Times Book Review said, “the book’s length feels like its author’s arms stretching farther and farther to encompass more people, more life . . . but mostly it is a colossal act of curiosity, of imagination, and of love.” Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World was hailed as “ravishing” by the German paper Der Spiegel. Both authors’ books were runaway international best-sellers and today these writers come together, admirers of each other’s work, to talk about making fiction from fact and much more. Cosponsored by LIVE from the NYPL

PEN Festival presents A Conversation with Bernhard Schlink and André Aciman
When?	4:00 pm on Sunday, May 4
Where?	South Court Auditorium, New York Public Library Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street
Admission	$15/$10 PEN members, library donors, seniors, and students with valid identification. www.smarttix.com or 212-868-4444.
Best known for his acclaimed 1999 novel The Reader, Bernhard Schlink’s latest work, Homecoming, continues to examine ideas of complicity and self-deception in postwar Germany. André Aciman is a noted essayist and editor of The Proust Project. His 1994 memoir, Out of Egypt, movingly evoked several generations of his Jewish family’s roots in Alexandria, and his recent novel Call Me By Your Name is an erotic coming-of-age saga soaked in Mediterranean sun and adolescent yearning. Join us for a conversation with these two extraordinary authors as they probe their own creative powers to weld secret memory and history into some of the most exquisite and evocative literature today. Cosponsored by LIVE from the NYPL

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