2009: Kiran Nagarkar, “Einführung und Gespräch: Ulrike Draesner”/”Reading and conversation with Ulrike Draesner”

Kiran Nagarkar, “Einführung und Gespräch: Ulrike Draesner”/”Reading and conversation with Ulrike Draesner”

Berlin Mosse Lecture
https://mosselectures.wisc.edu/berlin/

Thursday, 19 November 2009, 19:00 CET

Audimax of Humboldt University
Unter den Linden 6
1. Stock
10117 Berlin
GERMANY

Sponsored by:
The Mosse Foundation
Global Mosse Lecture Series
Gerda Henkel Stiftung
Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung
Humboldt University
Humboldt University Institut für deutsche Literatur
Public Affairs Program of the Embassy of the United States

Moderator: Ulrike Draesner (Author)

Lecture Description: Der bevorzugte Schauplatz in Kiran Nagarkars Romanen ist Bombay, die Metropole, in der sich nach Salman Rushdie sämtliche Indien treffen, und Indien die Einflüsse aus dem Rest der Welt treffen. Ravan und Eddie sind in dem gleichnamigen Roman die Protagonisten, der eine Hindu-Sprößling, der andere portugiesisch-stämmiger Katholik. Beide wachsen in einem Chawl auf, dem für Bombay typischen vier- bis fünfstöckigen Mietshaus, das hier zu einem mikrokosmischen Abbild der heterogenen indischen Gesellschaft wird, bar jeder romantischen Vorstellung von einem multikulturellen Miteinander. Und auch in Gottes kleiner Krieger ist Bombay der Ausgangsort für die Karriere des aus einer liberalen muslimischen Familie stammenden religiösen Fanatikers Zia Khan, die ihn über Cambridge zu den Terroristencamps in den Bergen Afghanistans führt und bald darauf vom abgeschiedenen Trappistenkloster in Kalifornien in die Machenschaften der internationalen Finanzwelt. Und immer wieder kehrt die Handlung nach Suleiman Mansion in Bombay zurück.

Kiran Nagarkar liest aus diesen beiden Werken in englischer Sprache. Die indienerfahrene Berliner Schriftstellerin Ulrike Draesner wird den Autor begrüßen und im Anschluss an die Lesung ein Gespräch mit ihm führen.

Lecture Series Description: Organized by the Institute for German Literature, the Mosse-Lectures have since their establishment in 1997 developed into an important forum for scientific exchange and transfer of knowledge, and have attracted numerous renowned international speakers to Berlin. For the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Humboldt University, the Mosse lectures are staging a series of events under the title of ‘A Literary World Map: Poets and their Places’ („Literarischer Atlas: Dichter und ihre Ortschaften“). Guests will include authors from five different countries and cultures, for speeches, readings and talks with German partners.

‘Elsewhere, Perhaps’ is the title of Amos Oz’ 1966 debut novel about the kibbutz in northern Israel in which he lived until 1986, a place ‘more radical than Tel Aviv’. He picks up this thread in his great novel ‘A Tale of Love and Darkness’ (2003): a localized fiction, which discovers a universe of storytelling within a small and enclosed environment. Christoph Markschies, President of the Humboldt University, will welcome the Israeli author and host the event. Kiran Nagarkar, one of the most relevant and controversial authors on the Indian subcontinent, has lived for a longer period of time (and continues to do so) as a guest of the DAAD and the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He will speak about the culture and literature of his hometown of Bombay (Mumbai) and will have a discussion with the German writer Ulrike Draesner. Istanbul is the environment of the novels of the 2006 Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk: at the border to western culture (and crossing that border), accompanied by Andreas Huyssen, literary scholar and art critic at the Columbia University in New York. ‘A language that I don’t understand tells me something’, writes Yoko Tawada from Japan, who most loves the harbor towns among the large cities, and who understands literature as creative translations into different languages, as described in her book, ‘Überseezungen’ (2002). (Reading and discussion with Sigrid Weigel). Juri Andruchowytsch from Franyk/the Ukraine, whose novels and essays have been translated into German, has in his new book project ‘Encyclopedia of my Cities’ developed a form of geo-poetics a mixture of literature and geography (Reading and discussion with Sylvia Sasse, University of Zurich).