German-speaking countries have no shortage of literature prizes and scholarships. When sales trends for non-mainstream literature are falling, not rising, such awards are an increasingly important way of providing writers with at least some financial freedom. Alongside the economic factor, literature prizes also serve to enhance writers’ reputation and to offer them the opportunity to…
Literary trends across Europe
2015, Innovations in the digital field, Literary trends across Europe
Tim Krohn’s Human Emotions/ Tim Krohns menschliche Regungen
by Beat Mazenauer •
In contemporary music the digital revolution has resulted in a heavy decline in profits from CD sales. Musicians must therefore find new incomes sources, for instance, with live appearances. Literature cannot expect a similar revolution, yet even writers are thinking about how to fund their lifestyle (apart from literary grants). Revenues from book sales are…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
An inside view of the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations
by Judith Vonberg •
Renowned across Europe as a unique and progressive institution, the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations (CAGCR) at Queen Mary, University of London, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Its innovative MA programme, ambitious cultural events schedule and two journals stand testament to the German Embassy’s description of the Centre as ‘an important platform for intellectual debate…
2015, Innovations in the digital field, Literary trends across Europe
Writing in Space / Die Schrift im Raum / L’Ecriture dans l’espace
by Beat Mazenauer •
In the 1990s, hyperfiction pointed new ways into the literary future. Mark Amerika’s Grammatron narrated a Golem story through short text particles, which were interlinked, and offered alternative narrative pathways to reading. Yet the trend was short-lived – the new narrative forms were barely acceptable for traditional literary criticism. Today, what is left is the…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
‘The Annual Hay Party Conference?’ Hay-on-Wye Festival 2015
by Rosie Goldsmith •
My annual Hay Party (Conference?) began and ended loudly. A frenzied clattering of wind and rain against the ‘walls’ of my first event in Tent-City-on-Wye with authors Vesna Goldsworthy and Kevin Maher declaiming gallantly against the elements. ‘Belgravia is the new Belgrade!’ Vesna proclaimed hoarsely about her superb creation the Russian oligarch ‘Gorsky’, and, ‘The…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
What do the results of the British general election mean for British and European support for the arts?
by Sophie Wardell •
There is a tremble on the lips of theatre directors in London. There is a nervous tic in the eye of culture house chief execs, festival managers and freelance curators across the UK. Further afield, there is a question forming in the art committees of Brussels, Berlin and Ljubljana: what do the results of the…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
Understanding Austria: on literary criticism, Part 2/ Österreich verstehen: über die Literaturkritik, Teil 2
by Peter Zimmermann •
In part one, I explained that in Austria we practically have no professional literary criticism be it good or bad. There are a handful of managers of literary journals or literary shows. Plus, we have a larger number of part-time critics working as a sideline in many fields, including literature. The same also applies…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
Understanding Austria: on literary criticism, Part 1/ Österreich verstehen: über die Literaturkritik, Teil 1
by Peter Zimmermann •
The Feuilleton debates largely initiated by writers diagnose the condition of German-language literary criticism as feeble, if not degenerate. The tirades against the critics are a tradition that pervades the German literary scene since its inception, that is, since the late 18th century. I should be more precise: since the origins of the interplay of…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
The future of our living literature: Europe as a continent of collaboration
by Steven J. Fowler •
I’ve said this often, and often to consternation, but I believe poetry, & literature in general, lends itself to collaboration as language does conversation, for it is in poetry we are renovating the living space of communication, and this in itself is a collaborative act. I believe the poet comes up against something other than…
2015, Literary trends across Europe
BETON INTERNATIONAL NO. 2: A GAZE INTO THE FUTURE OF EUROPE/ POGLED U BUDUĆNOST EVROPE
by Sasa Ilic •
The subscribers of Tageszeitung newspaper received on 10th March this year the second issue of Beton International, a 32-page annual supplement dealing with cultural and broader social issues, illustrated with comic-frames by Belgrade alternative comics authors. TAZ devoted readers are well aware of it, as they received the Beton supplement last year, which covered different…