Rushdie evokes on the Lit.Cologne | EUROtoday

“No pen!” A boring pencil is delivered to me. Police presence and bag checks do not match with the blissful temper of Europe’s largest literary pageant, the Lit.Cologne, whose twenty-sixth version has simply ended. And but everybody is aware of that it’s sadly obligatory when one among right now’s most vital authors seems, Salman Rushdie. With his quantity of brief tales “The Eleventh Hour” he has discovered his previous pleasure in creating tales in regards to the topic of dying. His translator Bernhard Robben shortly chases the elephant out of the room by asking the writer, based mostly on a sentence within the guide, whether or not he too requested himself after the assault in 2022: “Why did I survive?”

Rushdie solutions the query within the affirmative. Since his unlikely survival, he has been on the lookout for a solution as to how he desires to make use of this second probability. And he most likely discovered it way back: “I can’t stop,” says Rushdie. Contrary to his preliminary intention, he first needed to write in regards to the assassination try (“Knife”, 2024). That opened a window in his head and the tales got here speeding out once more. However, when he requested why he did not develop any of the standard post-traumatic signs, his therapist replied – hardly translatable: “Because you are a badass motherfucker.”

That’s most likely the medical time period for excellent storytelling expertise. Only a grasp storyteller is ready to mix the Arthurian legend with the biographies of Alan Turing, EM Forster and Rushdie himself right into a compelling ghost story like within the novella “Saumselig”. And so it’s the finest information of the night that Rushdie just isn’t even excited about retiring like his pal Philip Roth, who died in 2018. Referring to his well-known Post-it notice on his pc (“The struggle is over”), Rushdie explains: “I think the fight continues.” By the best way, he desires to be reborn “as a Ferrari”. So a lot for “badass.”

Many paths lead by way of this pageant. 121,000 guests got here this yr, which is a brand new document. On one of many broader paths was a patriotic and significant night in Cologne, the place Frank Schätzing, in one of the best administration marketing consultant communicate (“visions”, “disruptive thinking”), unpacked huge issues for the town. You simply have to beat the Cologne metropolis administration. Their planning and govt incompetence results in the “clumping up” of all tasks. Günter Wallraff wished it to be extra modest: decrease rents and Kölsch as a faculty topic can be a begin. And cheaper tickets at Lit.Cologne: “Which worker can pay this entrance fee?”

But the good factor is that the halls are offered out right here even in the case of much less loud matters, resembling the primary presentation of the immensely vital guide “That’s exactly how it begins” by Auschwitz survivor Eva Runde. The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany is resulting in conditions that she “didn’t think were possible,” stated the Slovak-German physician and writer, who can also be president of the International Auschwitz Committee: “That Jews are afraid again, for example to read the ‘Jüdische Allgemeine’ in the subway.” This makes maintaining reminiscences alive all of the extra vital. And the perception: “Anti-Semitism is older than Hitler, but Auschwitz is a German invention.” Eva Rund wish to see a much less formalized commemoration, one “with more heart and feeling.”

Judith Hermann’s new guide additionally revolves round reminiscence, which begins autobiographically after which expands into autofiction. It’s about German repression of guilt, which led to the narrator solely figuring out about her grandfather that he was in Poland with the Waffen-SS, however not what he did. Is partaking in analysis and “literarizing” a type of coming to phrases with it or a type of dying cult? “I write because I have questions,” stated Hermann. And the narrator additionally asks herself precisely the identical query in regards to the cult of the lifeless. She does not have a solution to that: “Sometimes it’s more about having asked the question in the first place.”

Another path led extra immediately into politics, even when the occasion with Olaf Scholz, who introduced the three books of his life or his present part of life – together with Ocean Vuong’s novel “On Earth we are briefly grandiose” from 2019 – was one of many dullest of the whole pageant. This was because of the diplomatically toned down solutions. Reading, for instance, is beneficial for politicians, however there are “also politicians who don’t read that much and are still great.” Sapperlot! It virtually appeared unusual that Scholz stated in relation to his memoirs, for which he was presently on the lookout for a writer (and one needed to perceive this as a swipe on the memoirs of his predecessor within the Chancellery, which he had allegedly not but learn), that he had “decided that the book would not be boring on any page”. There was no dialogue about gaps in reminiscence.

An unleashed Jean Asselborn confirmed how it may be achieved in another way. The EU should lastly react extra carefully to Putin and Trump, stated Luxembourg’s long-time overseas minister. The hazard from the appropriate have to be countered persistently. The French nuclear deterrent, in flip, should turn out to be a European one as a result of NATO might not final eternally. In the case of Hungary and different blockaded nations (“submarines”), the Christian Democrat allowed himself to be carried away by demanding that they in the end be requested to depart the alliance – or else rebuild “a Europe without them”.

Asselborn thus overtook Robert Menasse because the European anthem. The Austrian author has not solely introduced a heartfelt novella (“The Life Decision”) that makes bitter reference to the EU. He additionally took to the stage in opposition to a Union that had lengthy since given in to nationwide pursuits. He solely had one sentence up his sleeve for Ursula von der Leyen: “Stand back!”

How nicely does German pop literature age? This was investigated on residing objects in Cologne. It was attention-grabbing how completely different distinguished authors seemed again on their as soon as celebrated debut novels. Katja Lange-Müller solely reluctantly learn from her humorous generational portrait “Kasper Mauser” (1988). It’s “pretty strange” to her now. Leif Randt joked in regards to the “pretentiously poetic passages” of his debut “Leuchtspielhaus” (2010), through which he merely strung collectively “interesting sentences”. Klaus Modick, however, thought when he checked out his early work “Moos” (1984): “You used to be pretty good.”

While studying “Ludwig Must Die” (1989), Thomas Hettche realized: The sound continues to be there. An over-the-top Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre additionally appeared to face by each sentence from “Soloalbum” (1998). Helene Hegemann, however, stated that the fashion of “Axolotl Roadkill” (2010) “already annoyed her back then”. She did not point out the writer Airen, from whom she had made in depth use – the end result was an overheated plagiarism debate – however she did point out the “feuilleton cynicism” in direction of her. It reminds her of the “behavior of the right-wing online mob” right now.

The most influential debut of the previous few a long time was definitely Christian Kracht’s “Faserland” (1995); It’s arduous to consider that the writer learn from this novel publicly for the primary time at this occasion – after which dutifully answered questions (normally Kracht readings are harking back to church companies). He known as the guide “a mess” and admitted, “maybe it wasn’t so bad,” however then stated casually: “I found the later books better.” The king of pop goes for Bob Dylan.