71 article(s) translated from German
from “The Graveyard of Bitter Oranges”
In front of a tropical fruit stand in the Piazza dei Cinquecento, lit up by low-hanging bare bulbs, I stood and observed the red flesh pierced by black seeds of the melons, the yellow pineapples split…...
Block
Karl Walter Block was the only son of Irmgard Block (née Mucek) and Heinrich Maria Block. Heinrich had been a captain during the war and worked in an important secret office in Berlin until, for…...
Pulse beyond the Horizon
After the water, there was nothing. And if you looked long enough at the horizon, you could make out a stillness that transformed when the waves crashed against the rig's legs and the rusted steel…...
Always the Same Snow and Always the Same Uncle
The day before I emigrated, I parted from my best friend. We thought we’d never see each other again, because I’d never be allowed back in the country and she’d never be allowed out.…...
A Time for Jokes
“What a feeling,” she says. “It’s like everything’s new, it’s really funny.” She means being out again, I think. On her own two feet, so to speak. A bright morning…...
from “A Garden in the North”
Dr. Heidegger, the adjunct lecturer, lived in a rented room on a back courtyard off the Friedrichstrasse, above a brothel, and one can say that he kept an open house. At the age of seventeen, with a high-school…...
A Conversation with Rafik Schami
Rafik Schami was born in Damascus in 1946, came to Germany in 1971, and studied chemistry in Heidelberg. Today he is the most successful German-speaking Arabic writer. His novels have been translated into…...
Certain Suspicions
For a poet we loved very much When the paths of the two will intersect at noon, the observer from his high lookout will see a cross drawn on the ground. He will wait for a long time until one of the two…...
The World of Men and the World of Women
Walter had no luck with women. He had tried to write monologues and essays on this subject, and had even pulled off a noteworthy sentence here and there, but on the whole he came up with only commonplaces,…...
from “The Final Cut”
The four of them dragged the pig on the short ladder and lifted it onto the trestles in front of the sty. Their teeth clenched, the three men watched the woman, Diana Kampradt, the butcher. “The…...
On Killing
Carola Johansson’s invitation to spend a weekend in her villa in Andalusia arrived on April 7. I smiled wearily because it could only have been a bad joke on the part of one of my friends. Just days…...
from “The All-Rounder”
Wednesday At about three Farwick leaves the office building at one end of the market place. Just outside the door he stops. Is it warm or isn’t it? He’s carrying his light summer coat over…...
What I Wish For Myself
Of Wonder's songs the saddest about the downfall of New York City played on a record player in Hester Street of Brecht's poems the most beautiful written in the Charité 2 days before his…...
from “Man Angel”
Endless, the levee. Endless, the dead straight path. Endless, the whirring of the bicycle tires on the asphalt, the whistling of the wind in their ears and the high, bare, immutable blue of the sky over…...
Internet Life
On virtual seas I surf recklessly in every shape that I invent for myself omnipotent God among Gods mercifully I submerge a vulnerable fate create the world i seven seconds disappear into whoever’s…...
The Kerosene Boy
Daytimes my Daddy carries mail while I’m sitting here in school Evenings shopkeeper he and his salesman I…...
from “Broken Glass Park”
I hate men. Anna says good men do exist. Nice, friendly men who cook and help clean up and who earn money. Men who want to have children and give gifts and book vacations. Who wear clean clothes, don’t…...
Lockjaw
I walk toward the mill To meet my quiet father He walks on grass-covered paths His foot in a child's shoe The mill got swept away by the river Two wars have since gone by Father was taken away later…...
State of Siege
Wherever to go and whatever from can always be said for certain: because it's Sunday and three cars in front of the house hour after hour Marx Engels Lenin Stalin in the back seat ad usum delphini…...
One of Our Most Reliable Men
Where did they all go this time? Last Friday, that's right, Friday afternoon, it suddenly got quiet like this. There's always some kind of noise around here—footsteps, somebody coughing out…...
To Awaken with Her
To awaken with her, this dream to begin days, days full and ripe whose mornings already pour gold just like this one, this, on which I dream, and say to the gold in my window, I finally understand you,…...
Selam Berlin
Hi. My name is Hasan Kazan. In Berlin some people call me Hansi though my parents gave me the name Hasan Selim Khan. Oh yeah, my parents . . . They left Istanbul years ago and moved to West Berlin, the…...
The Knowledge Holder Doesn’t Choke on Cleverness
Feridun Zaimoğlu's Koppstoff: Kanaka Sprak vom Rande der Gesellschaft (1998) presents the fictionalized voices of twenty-six women of Turkish heritage living in Germany. "Koppstoff," which when…...
from Everyone Dies, Even the Paddlefish
The new boy with the big ears stood in the cold neon light of the cloakroom, right in the middle of the room, and his school slippers seemed to be stuck to the green linoleum. Take off your pants, Aunt…...
- Languages
- Afrikaans
- Albanian
- Amharic
- Ancient Greek
- Arabic
- Armenian
- Assyrian
- Basque
- Belarusian
- Bengali
- Bosnian
- Burmese
- Catalan
- Chinese
- Comanche
- Cornish
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dari
- Dutch
- Egyptian Arabic
- Eritrean
- Estonian
- Farsi
- Finland-Swedish
- Finnish
- French
- Gaelic
- Georgian
- German
- Greek
- Gujarati
- Haitian Creole
- Hebrew
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Indonesian
- Irish
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Macedonian
- Maltese
- Marathi
- Mongolian
- Nahuatl (Aztec)
- Norwegian
- Oriya
- Pashto
- Persian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Rajasthani
- Romanian
- Romany
- Russian
- Scots
- Scottish Gaelic
- Serbian
- Shetlandic
- Sinhala
- Slovene
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swahili
- Swedish
- Tamil
- Tigrinya
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Ullans
- Urdu
- Urhobo
- Uyghur
- Uzbek
- Vietnamese
- Welsh
- Yiddish
- Yindjibarndi
- Yoruba
Sections
