A visit at the international literature festival of Berlin
As one of our very first excursion within the advanced English class we decided to take a quick look at some literature for our second semester´s topic: cultural and ethnic identity. We went to the “Haus der Berliner Festspiele” on September, 13th to see and hear the very well-known British author, Bernadine Evaristo.
She presented one out of ten novels she had written: “Girl, Women, Other”. It won the Booker Prize in 2019 with her being the first black woman and black British person to win it in its fifty year history. She is currently a professor for creative writing at Brunel University in London and had earned numerous prizes so far.
Her performance at the literature festival seemed to be a hot spot of interest. Almost 800 students joined the reading, which was one of the biggest crowds she has ever experienced. She was overwhelmed, needless to say, but self-confident and chatty throughout the round of questions. She touched topics like growing up, family life, aims, future and work choices as well as giving advice on writing and editing texts in general. Pleasing the students with authentic material felt easy enough and the allocated time just ran out too quickly with many unanswered questions.
Altogether, it was a good experience for the class to see what a reading is like nowadays and to get a glimpse about the upcoming semester, even if it´s not everybody´s favorite choice. Thumbs up for more authentic English experience.
Diana Wendeborn