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“I have always resisted the power of time, driven by an inner compulsion that I myself have never understood, and cut myself off from so-called current events, in the hope—as I believe today,” said Austerlitz, “that time does not pass, has not passed, that I can go back to it and then find everything just as it once was, or more precisely, that all moments of time have existed simultaneously.”

So wrote W. G. Sebald in his final novel, *Austerlitz* (2001), which was published just a few months before his death in a car accident. Like his protagonist, Sebald explored the layers of history and how we live within them. Born in May 1944 in Bavaria while his father served in the Wehrmacht, Sebald spent his childhood in the shadow of the Holocaust and the destruction of World War II, in a society torn between silence and complicity, between catastrophe and reconstruction. These tensions—the banality of everyday life against the backdrop of unspeakable tragedies—had a lasting impact on his work.

Although he wrote in various genres, it was Sebald’s four novels that made him famous. In them, he established a style that blended fact and fiction, sometimes quoting at length from authors he had invented, sometimes inserting photographs or documents of dubious origin. His works often took the form of travelogues, in which the external world and its revelations replaced or even overshadowed the inner world. His approach inspired an entire generation of writers, but also drew numerous critics.

At the heart of Sebald’s work lies a deep understanding of crises, an exploration of the effects of catastrophes on the human psyche, both individually and collectively. He vividly describes the narrative disintegration and self-alienation that accompany exile, having spent the second half of his life in Great Britain. In works such as “A Natural History of Destruction,” he also addressed German wartime suffering and the destruction of German cities, always with an eye toward the politics of the past.

At “Sebald Remembering,” writers Marcel Krueger, Paul Scraton, and Madeleine Watts will discuss Sebald’s work and his legacy in a conversation moderated by Sanders Isaac Bernstein. Following a short break, Berlin-based writers are invited to read from their works inspired by Sebald.

Please note that the discussion will be held in English. However, the readings may be conducted in any language.

CALL FOR READINGS

“So this,” I thought, looking around, “is the representation of history. It requires a distortion of perspective,” Sebald wrote in “The Rings of Saturn.” “We, the survivors, see everything from above, see everything at once, and yet we do not know how it was.”

Inspired by Sebald’s work, they invite authors to submit texts on the theme of CRISIS. The contributions need not be imitations of Sebald’s work and should not refer to him. Rather, they are seeking approaches that attempt to understand a state of crisis (present or past, near or far), that problematize the act of observation, that incorporate geography, and that attempt to uncover historical layers in order to grasp their content. Location-specific texts, facts disguised as fiction and fiction presented as facts, as well as multimedia experiments, are expressly encouraged.

Selected readers will be invited to present their texts at the event. These will be published online and in a printed magazine commemorating the evening. Please submit your contribution (600–800 words or up to 30 lines of poetry) by May 17 to JosephRothToday@gmail.com.

Madeleine Watts is the author of the novels “Elegy, Southwest” (2025) and “The Inland Sea” (2020), which was nominated for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Born in Sydney, Australia, she currently lives in Berlin.

Marcel Krueger is a German-Irish writer and translator living in Berlin. His essays have appeared in The Guardian, Notes from Poland, 3:AM, Paper Visual Art, CNN Travel, The Diasporist, Przekrój, and The Irish Times, among others. Marcel is co-editor of “Elsewhere: A Journal of Place” and has published five non-fiction books in English and German, including “Berlin: A Literary Guide for Travellers” (with Paul Sullivan, 2016) and “Babushka’s Journey: The Dark Road to Stalin’s Wartime Camps” (2018).

Paul Scraton was born in northern England and has lived in Berlin since 2002. He is a co-founder of “Elsewhere: A Journal of Place” and the author of several books published by Influx Press, including “Ghost on the Shore: Travels Along Germany’s Baltic Coast” and the forest novella “In the Pines” (2021). His latest novel is “A Dream of White Horses” (2024).

Sanders Isaac Bernstein is a writer living in Berlin. His work, which often explores historical and personal memories, has appeared in Jewish Currents, Cabinet, and The Baffler, among others. He is a member of the Berlin-based Jewish writers’ collective Die Sammlung and a co-editor.

IN ENGLISH

Additional information
Dates
June 2026
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