international literature festival berlin: 12. Graphic Novel Day

Readings & talks

SPECIAL: 12. GRAPHIC NOVEL DAY
 

BRUNO DUHAMEL FFausses Pistes [tr: Wrong Track] / ANNELI FURMARK S: Walk Me to the Corner

For 15 years, Frank starred in a western show. His role, that of the famous Marshall Jack Johnson, has become his second identity. But then he loses his job. With his severance pay and a Colt in his pocket, Frank embarks on a journey to the original locations of the show. Bruno Duhamel, who won the 2020 Francomic Competition for »Jamais«, humorously tells of the contradictions in the character of his protagonist and the country he travels.
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Elise, in her mid-fifties, married with two grown children, is an all-around happy person. When she meets Dagmar by chance at a party, she falls in love with a ferocity that changes her life. »However painful to read, it captures so brilliantly […] the unexpectedness of sudden desire in middle age« [Guardian].

Translation: Katharina Erben

Moderation: Lilian Pithan
Languages: english, french

Saturday, September 10
Start: 4 pm
Kuppelhalle
Tickets

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MAX DE RADIGUÈS BELGIUM: Alerte 5 / EVERETT GLENN USA/ D: Unsmooth

The latest graphic novel by the Belgian artist depicts the explosion of a NASA rocket after launch. Because of the supposed terrorist context, alert level 5 is then triggered, which means complete isolation from the outside world for a team of five astronauts on Mars. The pressure pushes everyone involved to their limits ... »›Alerte 5‹ is a thriller that amazes, surprises and thrills« [ligne claire].
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An aspiring artist becomes embroiled in criminal activity in Everett Glenn’s debut, »Unsmooth #1«. »It is a complex meditation on masculinity, race, class, the art world and the act of cartooning, dressed up to look like a stylish thriller, and drawn with heaps of confidence and skill« [The Comic Journal]. The prequel, »Unsmooth #2: BUM«, tells the back story: formally experimental and multi-layered, it explores the sense of existential dread.

Moderation: Lilian Pithan
Languages: english, french

Saturday, September 10
Start: 6 pm
Kuppelhalle
Tickets

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MAKI SHIMIZU JAPAN/ D: Über Leben / MAX BAITINGER D: Sybilla

Rampant gentrification makes life difficult for Maki Mouse and Adagio the cat, as well as for the creative people in the city. Shimizu paints a radically subjective comic portrait of today’s Berlin bohemians. »Therapeutic and destructive are close together in ›Über Leben‹. Raising questions, making you think, reflecting on human experiences and social conditions, this book does all that« [Der Tagesspiegel].
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This biographical comic illuminates the life of the baroque poet Sibylla Schwarz, who was born in 1621 and died at the age of only 17. Over 200 of her poems were published posthumously. The Thirty Years’ War, expulsion, and exile are examined in her work, as are friendship and love. »The smartest and cheekiest book of its kind for a long time« [FAZ]; winner of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung Comic Book Prize.

Moderation: Lilian Pithan
Language: german

Sunday, September 11
Start: 3.30 pm
Kuppelhalle
Tickets

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ANA PENYAS ETodo Bajo El Sol [tr: Everything Under the Sun] / MATTHIAS GNEHM CH: Gläserne Gedanken

Winner of the Premio ACDCómic for Best National Work, »Todo bajo el sol« is a graphic novel that tells the story of the transformation of the Levante coast into a place of mass tourism and Spanish farmers’ struggle for survival in the early 1960s. It centers on a family living there, which increasingly suffers from the relentless advance of reinforced concrete and the transformation of the landscape, and which feels the devastating effects of neoliberalism.
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Matthias Gnehm, »the architect of comic artists« [NZZ], most recently nominated for the Max und Moritz Prize in the category »Best German-language Comic« for »Salzhunger«, presents »Gläserne Gedanken«, a graphic novel in the format of a smartphone, kept entirely in gray tones, which spins the possibilities of further digitalization: the plot centers on a start-up working to turn thoughts into written text.

Moderation: Lilian Pithan
Interpreter: Lea Hübner
Languages: german, spanish

Sunday, September 11
Start: 5.30 pm
Kuppelhalle
Tickets