Limonov at Volksbühne Berlin

Frank Castorf directs an adaptation for stage of Eduard Limonov’s novel “Fuck off, America” (“It’s me, Eddie”); stage set by Jonathan Messe

Premiere will be held February 29, 2008 at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin

Performance Schedule:

Friday Feb. 29, 2008 7:30pm  Großes Haus
Thursday Mar. 6, 2008 7:30pm  Großes Haus
Friday Mar. 21, 2008 7:30pm  Großes Haus
Saturday Apr. 5, 2008  7:30pm  Großes Haus

Frank Castorf and his concept for „Fuck off, Amerika“

As a director, Frank Castorf has been fascinated wth the poet maudit all through his career. He has created works on Rimbaud and Verlaine and, most recently, Céline. He has a heart for those who Are marginalized by society and who recreate themselves as artists, in sometimes radical and shocking ways, fighting for attention with sometimes radical and shocking statements, to find a way back in. Castorf is known as a blunt and sometimes brutal director, but his love for the outsiders in the spheres of art, literature and politics is heartfelt and genuine.

Eudard Limonows „Fuck off, Amerika“ has been a project he has carried in his heart for many years. In this material he is not looking for scandal, he is looking for the bruises and the tenderness hidden underneath a sometimes scandalous facade. In Eddie he found someone he, as one of the most famous European theatre directors, deep in his heart feels akin to. And in some of the poilitical writings of Eduard Limonow he finds an echo of his own deep scepticism against americanized western culture.
So, yes, there are, if rarely, political speeches held on stage, but not to make political statements. Yes, there is a depiction of bohemian life, bi- and hetrerosexual, but not to cause scandal and make statements on sexuality. If anything, Castorf‘s work on „Fuck off, Amerika“ so far resembles a collage, carried by eight actresses and actors and a pianist, who speak in many voices, who sing and recite poetry, while they follow the traces of Eddie through the text of the novel, and who are united by a shared feeling of being lost and lonley, trying to connect to each other and failing.

The set was designed by Jonathan Meese, one of the most cherished artists in Germany today, an outsider also. It is a slanted version of a white iron cross – a political, even military symbol. But it is art, white and immaculate. And in that very same way, the whole production tries to catch the shivering and poetic moment where radicalism in life and politics turn into beauty.

This work, the aristic work done on our stage version of „Fuck off, Amerika“, is as tender and vulnerable as Eddie, the main character of the book, himself. It must not get hurt, and we kindly als you to help us make it happen.

Robin Detje

"A Day in The Life of an Oprichnik", the new novel by Vladimir Sorokin, published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, will be launched at an author's reading, January, 29., 2008, 8 p.m, at LCB (Literarisches Colloquium Berlin), Am Sandwerder 5, Berlin.

The novel will be published simultaneously in France, Poland, Spain, Hungary, Israel, Sweden, Romania, Croatia, Slovak Republic, and Lithuania.

"Gazprom - Russia's Weapon", a book by Valerij Panyushkin and Mikhail Sygar, published by Droemer Publishers, Munich, will be launched in a press conference, January, 15., 2008, 11 a.m, at the Bundespressekonfrenz, Schiffbauerdamm 40, Berlin.

Russian, Polish, French, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Slovakian, and Hungarian editions will be published this spring.

Yevgeny Grishkovets' book Rubashka (‘The Shirt’) used as tool in a spy war

Andrei Lugovoi, the man suspected of poisoning ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, has held a news conference in Moscow, as BBC London reported (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6707775.stm). Mr Lugovoi said in 2005 Mr Litvinenko invited him to London where he proposed the idea of starting a joint business. … "For maintaining an undercover connection, I was given a British mobile phone, which I was supposed to use for calling from Moscow to London. From bad to worse: Litvinenko gave me an edition of Yevgeny Grishkovets' book Rubashka (‘The Shirt’) and told me that now we have to use cipher like in spy movies and to encode a text using numbers of pages, paragraphs and lines.”

Give the Peace Prize to Politkovskaya

Gerd Koenen and Norbert Schreiber call for the 2007 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to be awarded to murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya

As an extraordinary gesture, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for the year 2007 should be awarded posthumously to Anna Stepanova Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist and author who was assassinated last year. She was not only a model of boldness, engagement and civil courage in the struggle for peace, justice and truth. Her articles, books and journals, written in the hurly-burly of everyday political life, evinced a promising literary talent. Her cold-blooded, planned "liquidation" was designed to silence not only a voice critical of arbitrary government power and a fearless fighter for a civil society, but also an important author.

From her own distinct vantage point, Anna Politkovskaya tirelessly documented and attacked the further trampling of Russia's already endangered freedom of the press, the corruption of its social and political life, the destruction of its nascent rule of law, the instigation of racist rioting inside Russia itself, as well as the nearly commonplace use of torture and murder in the war in Chechnya. In so doing, she repeatedly put her life and health at risk in the face of ongoing threats.

In her books and articles, she by no means restricted herself to exposing the methods and mechanisms of the Kremlin's "controlled democracy" and the day-to-day abuses of power by Russia's bureaucrats, justice system and security services. She also fearlessly underscored the outrageous indifference, or even support, of the majority of Russians for this renewed muzzling of their country's government, economy and society, describing it as a self-deprivation of decision-making power born of fear and hysteria.

On top of all that, Anna Politkovskaya also accused Western governments and societies of ignoring the daily massacres and human rights violations in Chechnya, whether from indifference or out of self-interested economic and political motives, especially with regard to the struggle against Islamist terrorism. They had not, she insisted, grasped that this war is a disaster for Russia, the Russian Federation, and all of the so-called "post-Soviet region."

Few individuals have so selflessly and uncompromisingly invested all their literary and investigative abilities, as well as their entire professional career, in the service of an incorruptible sense of justice, a passionate advocacy of human rights and the rights of minorities, of peace and understanding, as Anna Politkovskaya did.

The awarding of the Peace Prize would be a visible sign that the works and the example emanating from a person like her cannot simply be silenced by a contract killing, no matter how coldly and "professionally" it is executed, but rather that her voice will continue to be heard beyond her death. The granting of this prize to Politkovskaya would by no means be a gesture of "hostile criticism" directed at Russia as a whole, but on the contrary, a sign of hopeful expectations for this country, its people and its culture. And finally, author and human rights advocate Anna Politkovskaya would be one more radiant figure in the ranks of those who have received this award.

The appeal originally appeared in German in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on February 10, 2007. Translation: Myron Gubitz for signandsight

The Grand Prix of the Russian film festival "Kinotaur" has been awarded to the Brothers Presnyakov for their film "Playing the Victim".

New York. Svetlana Alexievich wins the National Book Critics Circle nonfiction award for “Voices from Chernobyl. The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster” (Dalkey Archive Press).

Alexievich is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize, Osnabrück, 2001; the Prize of the German Academy of the Performing Arts, Berlin, 2000; the “Témoin du Monde,” Paris, 1999; “The Best Book on Politics of the Year,” Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Bremen, 1998; the Andrej Sinjavskij Prize, Moscow, 1997; the Kurt Tucholsky Prize, Swedish PEN Club, Stockholm, 1996.

Revised edition of “Voices from Chernobyl” (“The Chernobyl Prayer”) has been published by Dalkey Archive Press (paperback edition: Picador), USA; Berlin Verlag, Berlin; Vremya, Moscow; Mets & Schilt, Amsterdam; Maalehe Raamat, Tallinn. For other rights please check under authors/non-fiction/Alexievich.