Literature
Khuê Phạm
The conversation will be moderated by the independent independent literary scholar and critic Maha El Hissy, who in 2024 is curating the #Vorzeichen series for the Goethe-Institut Northwestern Europe. The conversation will be held in German and broadcast via Zoom. If you are in Berlin, you can join the conversation live at the bookstore Khan Aljanub in Neukölln. As always, participation is free of charge, and all are welcome.
Brothers and Ghosts
It’s a Facebook message that leads the family of first-person narrator, Kiều, from Berlin to California. When Kiều’s grandmother dies, the family members who live on different continents, come together in the USA for the reading of the will. These events propel the family towards difficult conversations which reveal a long-hidden past which unfolded during the Vietnam War. The plot moves between Vietnam and West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and establishes connections to the present in Berlin and California. It recounts aspects of the 1968 anti-Vietnam war protests, Cambodia, Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City and transnational and generational connections between people whose political views could not have been more opposed.
Quote
“Let me begin this story with a confession: I don’t know how to pronounce my own name.”
Khuê Phạm: Wo auch immer ihr seid. btb, 2021. / Brothers and Ghosts. Translated by Charles Hawley and Daryl Lindsey, Scribe, 2024.
Khuê Phạm
Khuê Phạm is an award-winning Vietnamese-German writer. A graduate from Goldsmiths College and the LSE, she freelanced for The Guardian and NPR’s Berlin bureau before becoming an editor at Die Zeit. In 2012, she published Wir neuen Deutschen (Rowohlt) with Alice Bota and Özlem Topçu, which is about immigrant children and their place in Germany. The English translation of her novel Wo auch immer ihr seid by Charles Hawley and Daryl Lindsey was published by Scribe under the title Brothers and Ghosts in April this year. She is based in Berlin.#Vorzeichen
This online event is part of the series #Vorzeichen. Wen, was und wie wir lesen [Accidental Portents: Whom, What, and How We Read]. The series illuminates the multiplicity of texts, forms, and aesthetic practices which have developed outside the hegemonial practices of canonization. It provides a critical perspective on the literary canon, highlighting the importance of reading as a practice for critiquing structures of power. In addition to literary conversations, the series will also include six online lectures at the intersection of literary studies and the contemporary literary scene, along with book discussions and reviews which will be published over the course of the year on Instagram. Further information about #Vorzeichen, as well as announcements for forthcoming events and recordings of previous sessions can be found at the following link.