Sanders Isaac Bernstein
@return2sanders.bsky.social
reader, writer, theatergoer. PhD into memory. Writing in Cabinet, The Baffler, Jewish Currents, Ploughshares, Hypocrite Reader, Full Stop, Majuscule, The London Magazine, newyorker.... https://sandersbernstein.wordpress.com
Experimental German poetry, Casanova, Virginia Woolf and John Lanchester's debut novels... Summer reading is looking even more eclectic than usual. What's on your list?
Oi! What are you reading this summer?
Friends and collaborators share what's on their bedside table at the moment.
theauflauf.com
Next month, under the auspices of @cabinetmagazine.bsky.social, Sally O'Reilly et al. will have 10 hours to make a musical about the history of hurrying. As proof of concept, she managed to answer over 10 questions from @return2sanders.bsky.social in 10 minutes:
Hurry! 3:09–3:19, Wednesday, June 10, 2026
A bit over 10 questions in 10 minutes on the musical Hurry, 591 BC–2007
theauflauf.substack.com
Carlo Ginzburg est mort, annonce la presse italienne. Immense historien, il a su construire une oeuvre originale entre micro-histoire et anthropologie historique qui a considérablement renouvelé la discipline. www.repubblica.it/cultura/2026...
Carlo Ginzburg è morto, addio al grande storico italiano
Aveva 87 anni. Era famoso in tutto il mondo per le sue ricerche sulla stregoneria e le credenze popolari
repubblica.it
8:30 on Saturday at Lettrétrage (Veteranenstrasse 21): we‘re chatting about the very alive literary legacy of Sebald. There’ll be some convo, some readings, some CRISIS perhaps—but all in all it should be a GOOD TIME!
Looking for new perspectives on German history? This month's reviews: @ajbwells.bsky.social on rock in the GDR, me on Alice Miller's search for her family's story, and John Owen on interwar Weimar (the city, not the republic).
June Books: Rauhut, Miller, Hoyer
The GDR rock band Silly, poems by Alice Miller, and Katja Hoyer on the rise of fascism in interwar Weimar
theauflauf.substack.com
In this month's AUFLAUF: - The most depressing street in all Berlin - Rock, funk, and Yes - Northanger Abbey references - Good poetry - Long-awaited John Owen debut - What are history books for? - Gossip columnist seeks hotspot theauflauf.substack.com/p/june-books...
June Books: Rauhut, Miller, Hoyer
The GDR rock band Silly, poems by Alice Miller, and Katja Hoyer on the rise of fascism in interwar Weimar
theauflauf.substack.com
I had the absolute pleasure to speak with Maggie O'Farrell about her excellent new novel, LAND, and how it inadvertently addresses "one of today's most potent political stances: Where do you stand on people arriving in your country or people leaving your country?" www.cntraveler.com/story/for-he...
For Her New Book 'Land,' Maggie O'Farrell Turned to the Wilds of Ireland for Inspiration
The Hamnet author on how cartography, travel, and place inform her latest work.
cntraveler.com
Fascinating interview by @return2sanders.bsky.social on Herta Müller's poetics, AI, the memory of Communism, and the sticky discomfort of Müller's bad politics:
Kate McNaughton: 'Herta Müller reminds us that writers are on the front line.'
The novelist on her new translation of the Romanian-born Nobel Prize winner—and the limits of beauty as resistance
theauflauf.substack.com
Wrote about a Dutch East India Company physician's attempt to figure out how acupuncture works – while essentially living on a prison off Nagasaki:
Diagrams from Willem ten Rhijne’s *De Acupunctura* (1683)
A Dutch physician’s encounter with acupuncture.
publicdomainreview.org
In the AUFLAUF review mail this month: - Karaoke - Fascist afterlives - Very good literature - Pick-me-girls - Books cost 20c a page now??? - Finally the truth about the Limerick Writers Center theauflauf.substack.com/p/may-books-...
May Books: Barton, Koeppen, Celan
An expat novel by Polly Barton, two thirds of Wolfgang Koeppen's postwar trilogy, prose ephemera from Paul Celan, and an apology
theauflauf.substack.com
Some great reviews this month: @brynstole.bsky.social on Wolfgang Koeppen's post-war trilogy, @return2sanders.bsky.social on Paul Celan's still-mesmerising ephemera, and myself on Polly Barton's novel of expat life and karaoke and translation:
May Books: Barton, Koeppen, Celan
An expat novel by Polly Barton, two thirds of Wolfgang Koeppen's postwar trilogy, prose ephemera from Paul Celan, and an apology
theauflauf.substack.com
Two wonderful short pieces by @return2sanders.bsky.social and @marcelkrueger.bsky.social: one about the immanence of early fatherhood, the other about the agonies of facing the past.
Short non-fiction by Sanders Isaac Bernstein and Marcel Krueger
‘Daily Maintenance’ and ‘Many People in Our Country are Very Concerned About This’
theauflauf.substack.com
Hilda Hoy might just be able to change the way you think about multilingualism, migration and motherhood – I had a wonderful time talking with her about her memoir MOTHER TONGUE, just out from @windandbones.com.
Hilda Hoy: ‘Well, I exist. Surely there are other people like me out there.’
The journalist discusses her new memoir, MOTHER TONGUE
theauflauf.substack.com
"My god, it took a genocide for people to want to know what's going on." This weekend, Mudar Al-Khufash is staging his lecture-performance Dialectics of Erasure at the Berliner Ringtheater. @return2sanders.bsky.social spoke to him for HEIST www.heistberlin.com/i-am-not-cen...
“I am not censoring myself at all”: Mudar Al-Khufash at the Berliner Ringtheater
Palestinian-German artist Mudar Al-Khufash brings his lecture-performance Dialectics of Erasure to the Berliner Ringtheater. It runs through Sunday April 19.
heistberlin.com
Lots of cool stuff coming out of Equator, a new mag with an explicitly international outlook that challenges western dominance of culture and society. This is a fascinating piece on how Switzerland harassed the Yenish and Sinti, two Traveler communities, from 1926-1973.
Stolen Children • EQUATOR
On Switzerland’s hidden persecution of the Yenish people
equator.org
I wrote about the poetry and prose of Antigone Kefala, one of the Great Australian Writers of all time >> sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essays/alien...
Alien Nation | Sydney Review of Books
From Berlin, Alexander Wells pays homage to Antigone Kefala (1931-2022). Attuned to migrants’ sense of displacement, Kefala’s writing, Wells argues, brought a new sensitivity to the alienating effects...
sydneyreviewofbooks.com
Here it is, My First Fiction Publication. Big 🩷 to the Auflauf gang. You should subscribe!
Mathilde Montpetit@mathildegm.bsky.social · 4mo ago"In the garden, they play at naming people. What’s your brother’s name? What’s your sister’s name? What’s your name? And what’s my name?" Such a pleasure to publish two short stories, by @katyderbyshire.bsky.social and Roxie Perkins, each about taking care of something that somehow takes over you.
A wonderful set of reviews: @ajbwells.bsky.social on poems from Palestine's greatest living poet; @return2sanders.bsky.social on unsettling short prose from the Yenish writer; and @biettetimmons.bsky.social on the book we're all supposed to be reading. (Plus our gossip columnist goes lyrical.)
April Books: Zaqtan, Mehr, Biedermann
New poetry from Ghassan Zaqtan, Mariella Mehr's short prose, and a novel by Nelio Biedermann—plus some informative verse
theauflauf.substack.com
"I like comics because it’s kind of a bastard medium, and I think graphic narrative theater is too. It’s the vision." Ken Krimstein talked to @return2sanders.bsky.social about writing novel about Hannah Arendt – and then seeing it become a play at the Deutsches Theater.
Ken Krimstein: ‘I wanted to look at Hannah from the other end of the telescope.’
The New Yorker cartoonist talks about Hannah Arendt on the page and stage
theauflauf.substack.com
the terms are unacceptable. Tuttle should resign www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
Berlin Film Festival Boss to Accept New Advisory Board and “Antisemitism Code of Conduct” (Report)
Tricia Tuttle came under fire following pro-Palestinian speeches by Berlinale award winners at this year's awards gala.
hollywoodreporter.com
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Mathilde Montpetit@mathildegm.bsky.social · 5mo agoAnother great set of books this month: Matthew McDonald's debut poetry collection @ajbwells.bsky.social; Julia Franck's autobiographical novel @return2sanders.bsky.social; and Agri Ismaïl's account of dislocation and late capitalism @brynstole.bsky.social. Plus some EXPLOSIVE new gossip...
subscribe to the auflauf! undoubtably berlin's premier gossip-mongering literary review!
Mathilde Montpetit@mathildegm.bsky.social · 5mo agoAnother great set of books this month: Matthew McDonald's debut poetry collection @ajbwells.bsky.social; Julia Franck's autobiographical novel @return2sanders.bsky.social; and Agri Ismaïl's account of dislocation and late capitalism @brynstole.bsky.social. Plus some EXPLOSIVE new gossip...
the best new books publication the western hemisphere is THE AUFLAUF: theauflauf.substack.com
The Auflauf | Mathilde Montpetit | Substack
Book reviews, interviews and other hot scoops from Berlin. Click to read The Auflauf, a Substack publication. Launched a month ago.
theauflauf.substack.com
Mathilde Montpetit@mathildegm.bsky.social · 5mo agoAnother great set of books this month: Matthew McDonald's debut poetry collection @ajbwells.bsky.social; Julia Franck's autobiographical novel @return2sanders.bsky.social; and Agri Ismaïl's account of dislocation and late capitalism @brynstole.bsky.social. Plus some EXPLOSIVE new gossip...
Another great set of books this month: Matthew McDonald's debut poetry collection @ajbwells.bsky.social; Julia Franck's autobiographical novel @return2sanders.bsky.social; and Agri Ismaïl's account of dislocation and late capitalism @brynstole.bsky.social. Plus some EXPLOSIVE new gossip...
March Books: McDonald, Franck, Ismaïl
Poems by Matthew McDonald and novels from Julia Franck and Agri Ismaïl, plus some gossip from our new correspondent.
theauflauf.substack.com
#Berlin "The Sea Is There, But We Are Not" Literature from #Palestine Reading & conversation with Alaa Alqaisi, Asmaa Azaizeh, Maha El Hissy @mahaelhissy.bsky.social & Ahmed Saleh, music by Cham Saloum Heute Abend ab 19:30 Uhr, Eintritt kostenfrei, Eingang rollstuhlgerecht (leider nicht die WCs)
The Sea Is There, But We Are Not – diffrakt
diffrakt.space
What's one of the great openings to a story, poem, novel or essay?
In the Auflauf's first monthly author interview, @mathildegm.bsky.social dials up @tobiasvryan.bsky.social in his Parisian garret to talk about unrelatable fiction, @minorliteratures.bsky.social, and the Unreal (European) City of his soul ....... theauflauf.substack.com/p/tobias-rya...
Tobias Ryan: ‘I dealt with it for ten years—now someone else can have it.’
The minor literature[s] Editor-in-Chief on his new novel GLANTZ
theauflauf.substack.com
