Great voices - Berlin I

Dear reader of this blog, you had to wait a little bit to read another quote of the month mainly due to the fact that it is summer time and a lot of times I prefer to read outside, enjoying the few sun shines in the northern part of Europe.  

But here we are again...and strong, stronger than ever especially with some strong female voices. To begin with I started with two female singers, Marlene Dietrich and Hildegard (K)nef, both very well known, also to the English speaking public.

Both women are closely connected to Berlin, both had 'lost a suitcase' in Berlin, both had sung of their longing to return to Berlin and both were lucky enough to being able to return eventually. (For a wonderful English cover version by Rene Caron on 'Suitcase in Berlin' click here)

copyright: placesonline.fr

And Berlin is were I will be returning, after exactly 31 years! The last time I was there, Berlin was still divided, we still had to cross the border of the former DDR and while visiting a former school friend of one of my school friend's father (who had fled the DDR in the early 50s) in East Berlin, I drove in a 'Trabant' (typical car in the former DDR) and ate sausages on a pizza for there was no other meat product other than that. I spent my compulsory 25 DDR-Mark mainly on...books! And I got some really interesting ones from Latin America! But since then I never had the drive to go back, never had the interest in returning though I know a bunch of people who love the city and return there every year, if they didn't return there for good to live there.

Nevertheless, I finally will return with one simple reason: some really great voices will be there again. Not so much singing voices but reading voices by some excellent writers: Kamila Shamsie, Jenny Erpenbeck, Elif Shafak, Laksmi Pamuntjak and maybe I can stay long enough to also meet Zeruya Shalev who will only arrive after Jom Kippur. All are part of an interesting programme of the international literature festival "internationales literaturfestival Berlin" (ilb). It will be a thriving week and I am so excited to being able to meet all those four(+) women (additionally I will meet Mona Eltahawy, Laurie Penny and Josephine Decker) in one spot: Berlin.

Pity that there won't be a get together of all of them in one discussion on female voices in the literary world...but this is a beginning and you never know what will be! So, I'll keep you informed...Maybe some of you are going there as well? I would love to learn about you and we might meet on the way?! You can contact me by mail or just use twitter @DiaLogaStef. Looking forward to it!

P.S.: If you happen to know some nice place to stay, I will be more than happy to learn about it!