This is very exciting. Words Without Borders’ next book is being published by Open Letter Books this fall and is available for pre-order now. What’s more, there will be a “The Wall in My Head Blog” at…
Here’s Rohan’s first post from the blog, which will also serve to give you a sense of the book:
This November, our [Words Without Borders] book The Wall in My Head, will commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also, the wave of revolutions that preceded and followed it. The book will look back on the great change that came with 1989 and examine how the promise of that decade has weathered the twenty years since then.
The Wall in My Head dwells extensively; humorously, poignantly, quirkily, on different views of the fall of the Iron Curtain—that of the generation of writers that witnessed it and often, had played a role in bringing it down, and more recently, the generation that inherited a memory of the Cold War and who write in the shadow of its monuments of division.
We hope that the publication of this book will prompt discussion about the events of ’89 and their relevance to today’s world, one in which the prospect of change has once again assumed a vital importance. To encourage this exchange of ideas, we have asked a variety of people; writers, translators, scholars, and witnesses to the events of those last years of the Cold War, to blog for us for the next several months. Their dispatches will range from discussions of the contents of the book to observations about current events and important anniversaries, as well as posts on the art, photography and film of the last years of the Cold War. I hope you’ll follow along, and that you’ll join in with your comments, as well as your own recollections, observations and news about this important anniversary.