Time to Listen
Poetries of Life

The sultan of a land flowing with milk and honey could talk to the birds and predict the future. He had a wonderful wife, was loved by all his subjects. One night he had a dream that changed his life. He met his predecessor, who was as happy as he was, but disappeared without a trace...

Gaye Boralıoğlu loved chocolate when she was a kid. In order to always have an inexhaustible supply of chocolate and gold, she came up with an unusual idea - but she did not expect her mother's ingenuity.

Véronique Tadjo reads a chapter from her novel The Whispering Tree, about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014. A young man, whose fiancée has been infected with the Ebola virus, remembers their shared love for poetry as the only way to express his love for her.

Claudius remembers his brother, Hamlet’s father, and his splendid appearance, which earned him the sympathy of his subjects, especially the women. He also remembers the wars through which the Danish king gained immense power. And finally he remembers Hamlet, the “arrogant dandy.” What actually prevented him, Claudius, from killing Hamlet?

Little is known about Alma who founded a community in the 18th century that is home to 900 families today. Alma was a former slave who walked 400 kilometers on foot from the capital. Itamar Vieira Junior imagines what experiences she had on her way, what thoughts occupied her, what drove her.

Impressions from a street in Rome, completely different from the others. People that aren’t chasing after material things, that are following their stories in their thoughts and perceiving a color that keeps coming back...

Sofi Oksanen tells of a place where in the days of the Soviet Union – unobserved by the state – a free exchange of ideas could thrive. A place where dreams and hopes were preserved for decades and a unique art has been cultivated for generations...

Shamin Chibba narrates the story of his grandmother. In telling the story, present and past flow into each other: memories of a hard life, political events in India, twists of fate and everyday experiences...

The words in this poetic text push back against the fear and the feeling of loneliness that creep up on us in these times, concluding with the line, “...this is how love is born.”

Bae Suah is on a writing residency in Morocco when her stay takes on a surprising new form, leading to fresh impressions, such as the sight of cats roaming empty streets like panthers, looking like prophets in disguise.

Pavlina Marvin tells of her friend Irini, who gave her a floral coat during their studies. She wears the coat to this day, as it hasn’t lost any of its flowers. When both of them wanted to meet in Athens recently, Irini didn’t show up. She was looking after an Indian man who had lost his job due to the pandemic and was in great distress.

The story of Steinunn Sigurðadottir begins at the foot of Europe’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull, where a maid was impregnated in 1910 – by a landlord. She had to leave the farm because of this, which was unfortunately common in those days. She travelled to Reykjavík on foot, which took seven days at that time.

Thus begins a journey through the decades, at the end of which the story of Steinunn’s life begins. And a gesture of generosity and kindheartedness is revealed.

Whose voice do authors use? What do the words mean? What does it mean to have a “voice of your own” as a writer? Aris Fioretos, raised in Sweden by an Austrian mother and a Greek father, tells how he found his voice – while separating his voice from his image.

From her apartment, the narrator looks out over a river, a cemetery – and a street between the two; in a sense, between life and death. She tells of her mother, remembers her goddess-like abilities, her quirks. And then she turns to her “Dear Mei!” – her “Dear Mother” – to send her a message between life and death. 

When David was seven years old, he saw a scene from the Hollywood classic The Sound of Music on television: a nun sings the song “Climb Every Mountain,” which accompanies David from then on and gives him the strength to make a difficult decision at an important point in his life.

The writer and translator Michal Hvorecký works in a library in Bratislava, where one day a gentleman came in and introduced himself as the grandson of a world-famous writer. This encounter would have consequences.

Following in the footsteps of the “world collector,” Richard Burton, Ilija Trojanow came across a market in what we now call “Tanzania” where an old woman gave him a precious thought.

In 1968, a survivor of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima visits the German city of Hanover with a delegation. At a bus stop, a conversation takes place with a man who withdraws his outstretched hand when he finds out where the visitor is from – out of fear of radioactive radiation. When the mayor of Hanover hears this, he takes action.