The European Review of Books is a new multilingual magazine of culture and ideas: writing in English and in a writer’s mother tongue. After a crowdfunding campaign one year ago, the editors can now present the first issue.
Books? Review? Europe? Such a project might sound thrice-doomed. The title alone might spark very different sentiments—aspiration, nostalgia, bitterness, scorn, confusion, delight—even before one sets out to realize it.
And yet now it exists. Issue One rings in at 256 pages, with essays, fiction, poetry and art, from Europe and beyond. Reviews of old books in new translation, and reviews of new books in non-translation. As a book, it has a novel design, a puzzle-box suited to the project itself.
Chaired by Frank Fehrenbach, a panel of four HIAS fellows (Alide Cagidemetrio, Péter Cserne, Racha Kirakosian, and Werner Sollors) will comment on the first issue of the European Review of Books (ERB).
This will be followed by a presentation by the editors George Blaustein and Sander Pleij, who will reflect on the riddles of the magazine’s creation– be they solvable or unsolvable–and discuss with the audience plans for future issues as well as for the prospects of a multilingual république des lettres.
Launch Event by invitation. If you want to join please send us an eMail to event@hias-hamburg.de