Poetry and Zines without Borders (LitFest 2025)

This event features founding editor of the Berlin Review Tobias Haberkorn, poet and Bard College Berlin alumnus Sam Zamrik, and translator, songwriter and director of the Toledo-Programm Aurelie Maurin. In a round-table discussion the panelists will talk about their work as multilingual artists, publishers, poets and educators, thereby providing insights both into their creative and intellectual contributions and into the multifaceted Berlin literary scene – a scene that is as precious as it is fragile, thriving and yet coping with economic pressures. 

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Tobias Haberkorn is a translator, journalist, and literary scholar. He is co-editor of the bilingual cultural magazine Berlin Review and has worked as a culture editor at ZEIT Online. He studied literature, aesthetics, cultural studies, and mathematics in Paris, Berlin, and Darmstadt, and received his PhD with a dissertation on François Rabelais and Michel de Montaigne. His essays have appeared in DIE ZEIT and other publications. He has held fellowships at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, the American Council on Germany, and the IFK International Research Center for Cultural Studies. His translations include Didier Eribon’s Returning to Reims as well as works by Alain Badiou, Christian Maurel, and Ryan Trecartin.

Aurélie Maurin, born in Paris, has lived in Berlin since 2000, working as an event organizer and literary translator (including works by Thomas Brasch and Thomas Rosenlöcher). She was curator for the Haus der Poesie and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt for many years and co-edited the poetry series VERSschmuggel and the magazine la mer gelée. Since 2017, she is head of the TOLEDO-program of the German Translators' Fund, for which she initiated the series TOLEDO-Journale, Cities of Translators, TOLEDO Talks, and the poetry translators' meeting JUNIVERS. Since 2021, she has been the artistic director of the Lyriktreffen Münster poetry festival, together with Anja Utler. Most recent publication: Junivers, Urs Engeler 2023. She also performs her poetry renderings as a musician, which can be listened to at stadtprachen.de. 

Sam Zamrik, born 1996 in Damascus, Syria, is a trans-queer author, translator, and political educator. Zamrik studied literature and politics at Bard College Berlin and was supported by the PIESC program. Several of Zamrik’s texts were published by the WIR MACHEN DAS initiative “Weiter Schreiben” and in various German newspapers such as taz and Tagesspiegel. Zamrik curated several workshops on language, politics, and literature as part of the Archive of Refuge at the House of World Cultures and the Brecht Days at the Literature Forum in the Brecht House, among others. In Fall 2022, Zamrik's English-German poetry collection “ICH BIN NICHT” was published by Hanser Berlin Verlag. Zamrik's debut was selected for the 2023 Poetry Recommendations List of the German Academy for Language and Poetry and was praised by critics as a powerful poetic engagement with the experience of exile. Zamrik was awarded the inaugural Wunderblock Award by the Wunderblock Foundation and was a Junior Fellow at the Mercator Foundation. Sam Zamrik lives and works in Berlin.

For more information, e-mail [email protected].

Time: 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm CET/GMT+1

Location: Kidd Hall Cafe (W15)

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