All posts by Julia Shimura

I am writer and blogeress for CROWD since 2015. Other from that I have published in magazines in German in Die Epilog and kon. Besides writing I engage as a curator and organiser in literary festivals.

Noémi Kiss (HUN): Pop-Rhetorics vs. Literature

Noémi Kiss is a literary woman voice from Hungary whose works are direct, confrontational and critical. By her stories about her travels and about woman specific experiences like pregnancy she developed a rich style and at the same time can address and reveal political in an uncompomising way. 

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Xiaolu Guo: Everybody dreams of a borderless world

Born in China in a small village, and after studying film in Beijing Xiaolu Guo went into exile to London. Her work is inspired by her biography, resistance, identity, home – she lives between different worlds and languages. Today she is one of the most appreciated and proliferated authors and film makers in Britain – in November she will be in Berlin at Lettrétage, presenting her works.

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Andrea Inglese (FR/I): at something more material

Andrea Inglese named his new project something as big as “Describing the world”. One would think that this is a pretty big gesture – why would you actually attempt to describe the world / the only existing world / the world of what!? The very try seems absurd considering the information based relativism today. So: how would you do that, describing the world? Continue reading Andrea Inglese (FR/I): at something more material

Nataša Kramberger (SI): ecology and literature

Nataša is a prize-winning novelist and a literary activist who besides her life as a writer and journalist advocates for the many stories of rural life. Her literary origin is deeply rooted to her upbringing in a small village in Slovenia. She promotes rural life by literature and literary activism derived from oral storystelling, by manufacturing things that are sustainable, that tell a story. She combines literature and ecology. Continue reading Nataša Kramberger (SI): ecology and literature

Maxime Coton (BEL): Simplicity is hard work

Maxime Coton is an author, musician and film maker. He stresses the ordinary; time being generous; repetitious practices in life being in themselves singular and unique moments. Between his two books of poetry several years passed. There was one more collection of short stories this year. Inbetween he decided to make movies and currently he writes a script for the theatre called “vivre virtuel”. The big gestures are not the characterizing bits in his works neither is he drawing the big picture. He extracts the ordinairy as the actually uncommon experience.

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Daniela Seel: „Laboratory for poetry as a form of living“

Daniela Seel is author, publisher, lecturer and critic and one of the matadors of new poetry. When you are looking for new German contemporary voices from poetry you strike a bonanza when you look at the programme of kookbooks. And even though her 2011 published collection of poems is called “ich kann diese stelle nicht wiederfinden” (“i cannot find this passage again”) she constantly proves the opposite, that is that she has found her place pretty well. According to her, poetry should be a form of life rather than an evening entertainment. Continue reading Daniela Seel: „Laboratory for poetry as a form of living“

social fiction 2.0: blind angles on facebook

Social fiction 2.0 is a storytelling experiment expanding over several social media channels in video, audio and text. Usually that is called “transmedia storytelling” as you can see in the American TV series „Lost“ or Christian Ulmens „About:Kate“ (Germany). There is but one difference to social fiction 2.0. The story of Anne Utz shows who has the right to speak on fb and the like and who has not. Without doubt it is no media strategy but politicial theatre.

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Satu Taskinen (FI): „I try to add to awareness.“

Satu is described as an author who writes about the European middle class and thus writes European literature. One could say that she adds to awareness by pointing out the limitations of our knowledge and ambitions. What does “perfect” in her novel “The perfect Schweinsbraten” then mean? An e-mail interview.

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