HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
Dublin Literary Award Winner
JENNY FARRELL introduces an extraordinary book that maintains the cultural practise of the GDR by writing about ordinary working lives
The construction of the Marzahn housing project, 1978
[German Federal Archive/CC]
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing
GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist
SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
JENNY FARRELL relishes an intimate memoir about growing up in the household of the great Irish communist and playwright Sean O’Casey
SIAN LEWIS relishes a comprehensive account of high rise social housing in Britain by prize-winning social and political historian Holly Smith
Marzahn Mon Amour
by Katja Oskamp, Peirene Press, £12
The winner of the annual International Dublin Literary Award for 2023 is a book by the East German writer Katja Oskamp, Marzahn, Mon Amour. Marzahn was once the GDR’s most ambitious and largest social housing programme, providing homes for over 270,000 people.
The book is firmly rooted in a GDR literary tradition – that of truly valuing the ordinary, everyday lives of people, inseparably linked to the world of work. Perhaps the most famous example in GDR literature is Maxi Wander’s Guten Morgen du Schöne (1977, Good Morning, Beautiful). It presents interviews with 19 women aged between sixteen and ninety-two, talking about their lives.
A similarly themed book of interviews with men by Christine Mueller, Maenner-Protokolle (1985), was later followed by Christa Wolf’s diary-style publication Ein Tag im Jahr (2003, One Day a Year), where she records her own reflections on the same date every year, September 27, 1960-2000.
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