Berlin Stories

by Philip Hensher

Berlin, in the words of Philip Hensher, editor of this anthology, 'has always been a city of desperate modernity', both in terms of urban architecture - largely a creation of the progressive 19th century, laid waste by World War II, temporary home of the infamous Wall - and in ways of living and behaving. As early as the 1920s it was the gay capital of Europe; the Communist East/free West barrier presented unique problems for a divided population; and in the 1990s, in the aftermath of reunification, the cheap, run-down city became a vibrant centre for creative artists. 'The sense of making it up as you go along is never far away in Berlin.'
The stories in this volume are the product of this series of multiple rebirths from the viewpoint of both insiders and outsiders. From pre- 1914 there are contributions from Theodor Fontane and Robert Walser; from the Weimar Republic, Alexander Döblin, Vladimir Nabokov, Erich Kästner, Ernst Haffner, Irmgeud Keun and Christopher Isherwood; from the Third Reich, Thomas Wolfe, Hans Fallada and Heinz Rein; from the Cold War era, Peter Schneider, Thomas Brussig, Len Deighton, Christa Wolf and Ian McEwan; from post-reunification, Günter Grass, Wladimir Kaminer, Chloe Aridjis, Uwe Timm, Kevin Barry, Jean-Philippe Toussaint and Jenny Erpenbeck.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Literary Fiction, German Literature, Contemporary

400 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2019

About the author

Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School.[2] He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before attending Cambridge, where he was awarded a PhD for work on 18th century painting and satire. Early in his career he worked as a clerk in the House of Commons, from which he was fired over the content of an interview he gave to a gay magazine.[1] He has published a number of novels, is a regular contributor, columnist and book reviewer for newspapers and weeklies such as The Guardian, The Spectator , The Mail on Sunday and The Independent.
The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife (1999) brings together 14 of his stories, including ‘Dead Languages’, which A. S. Byatt selected for her Oxford Book of English Short Stories (1998), making Hensher the youngest author included in the anthology.http://literature.britishcouncil.org/...
Since 2005 he has taught creative writing at the University of Exeter. He has edited new editions of numerous classic works of English Literature, such as those by Charles Dickens and Nancy Mitford, and Hensher served as a judge for the Booker Prize. From 2013 he will hold the post of Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.[3]
Since 2000, Philip Hensher has been listed as one of the 100 most influential LGBT people in Britain,[4] and in 2003 as one of Granta's twenty Best of Young British Novelists.[1]
In 2008, Hensher's semi-autobiographical novel The Northern Clemency was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2012, Hensher won first prize -German Travel Writers Award, and is shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize. He also won the Stonewall Prize for the Journalist of the Year in 2007 and The Somerset Maugham Award for his novel Kitchen Venom in 1996. He wrote the libretto for Thomas Adès' 1995 opera Powder Her Face. This has been his only musical collaboration to date.
His early writings have been characterized as having an "ironic, knowing distance from their characters" and "icily precise skewerings of pretension and hypocrisy"[1] His historical novel The Mulberry Empire "echos with the rhythm and language of folk tales" while "play[ing] games" with narrative forms.[1]
He is married to Zaved Mahmood, a human rights lawyer at the United Nations.

You can find out more about Philip on his author page at 4th Estate Books: http://www.4thestate.co.uk/author/phi...

Reviews

[Jean Blackwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

The short stories in this collection were well done and interesting for the most part. But inexplicably the editor included numerous chapters taken from novels which were nearly impossible to make sense of beyond a mood of danger and intrigue. Rather disappointing.

[Macy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certain chapters are better than others of course, but overall a wonderful introduction into the world of literature set in Berlin. I appreciate the span of time and subject the stories cover. Great read.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories and excerpts from works about or that takes place in the German city of Berlin. Like most collections of short stories, some are better than others, but overall I enjoyed these. Stories in this collection are:

Excerpt from "Effi Briest" by Theodor Fontane
The Little Berliner by Robert Walser
From "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Alfred Döblin
From "King, Queen, Knave" by Vladimir Nabokov
From "Going to the Dogs" by Erich Kästner
From "Blood Brothers" by Ernst Haffner
From "The Artificial Silk Girl" by Irmgard Keun
A Berlin Diary: Winter 1932-3 by Christopher Isherwood
The Dark Messiah by Thomas Wolfe
From "Alone in Berlin" by Hans Fallada
Berlin, April 1945 by Heinz Rein
From "The Wall Jumper" by Peter Schneider
From "Heroes Like Us" by Thomas Brussig
From "Funeral in Berlin" by Len Deighton
From "They Divided the Sky" by Christa Wolf
From "The Innocent" by Ian McEwan
The Diving Duck by Günter Grass
Business Camouflage by Wladimir Kaminer
From "Bookd of Clouds" by Chloe Aridjis
The Reichstag, Wrapped by Uwe Timm
Berlin Arkonaplatz - My Lesbian Summer by Kevin Barry
From "Television" by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
From "Go, Went, Gone" by Jenny Erpenbeck

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this. It is a collection of excerpts from longer works by various writers, all of whom are talented. The collection is diverse in the writing styles and also the eras in which they were written. The only common thread is that the setting is Berlin.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining collection, I now feel that I need to read some of the books that the extracts came from.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the places I’ve never been, Berlin is probably the one I’d most like to visit. As such, I really enjoyed this collection of, essentially, snapshots of the city from various periods of literature written about it.

Even though it’s not a collection of essays and not quite a collection of short stories, I felt the same way I usually feel when reading those - I really liked some, some were just fine, and some didn’t work for or appeal to me. And there’s - probably unsurprisingly - a strong undercurrent of melancholy running through these, especially as the stories approached present day. Still, place/scene/setting/atmosphere/whatever you want to call it is my favorite thing to read in literature, and ultimately I found this a compelling collection that made me even more strongly desire a visit to Berlin.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, wish there were more to the stories.