September 2026

When a Wall Enters a Children’s Story

Reality and Imagination in Palestinian and Israeli Children’s Literature

"Then you'll have to write it yourself."

Donica Merhazion was born in 1979 in a prison in Addis Ababa. In "Born at the End of the World", she tells the story of her parents and of Asmara – from the open-minded city of the 1960s to the terror of the military junta beginning in 1974.

Anyone who isn’t seen is allowed to stay

In "Schattenleben" (Shadow Life), Lisa Frühbeis and Jonas Seufert give four undocumented people a face and a name – names they are not actually allowed to have.

U.S./Iran: A Power Struggle to the Bitter End

Like Alexander the Great, the U.S. president wanted to sever the Gordian knot of power dynamics in the Middle East. His sword was not sharp enough. Vali Nasr’s "Iran’s Grand Strategy" explains the background.

The limits of the body

Set against the backdrop of a neonatal intensive care unit, dating apps, and the threat of war, Leh-Wei Liao’s 'Glaszeit' (The Age of Glass) tells the story of bodies and life paths that defy their supposed identities

Ethnocide

From recognising others to defending a Kogui girl, it is clear how ethnocide originates in ways of thinking and how it can be prevented through action.

Radical Online Identities

Cynical to the point of being unbearable: In Tony Tulathimutte’s multi-award-winning collection of short stories, "Rejection", the outsiders among the millennials raise their (literary) voices

What Law Cannot Fully Capture

Ugandan lawyer, poet and human rights advocate Awadifo Olga Norah on writing as ethical inquiry, the aftermath of violence, women as builders of peace – and literature’s power to preserve memory

The Exile of the Gaze

In 'Leila & Khaled', Nyla Matuk tells not only of a return to Palestine, but also of the impossibility of escaping the images shaped by her own Western socialisation

Between the lines

With 'Fatherland', Paweł Pawlikowski responds to Colm Tóibín’s Thomas Mann novel with radical minimalism: a film of glances, pauses and empty spaces – overwhelmingly beautiful, though at times too ascetic