In Print

One of my main concerns is making information I consider important more widely available – by writing about a subject or by translating. I've also published a number of long reads about housing and gentrification in Berlin. See News/What's On My Mind.

Leila Sebbar

In Paris, in 1986, I discovered the term "beur" – the second generation of North African immigrants: young people who, despite being born and raised in France are not accepted as "French." I devoured numerous novels focused on beur by Algerian-born Francophone Leila Sebbar and published an article about her work in World Literature Today.

Leile Sebbar, Voice of Exile

The Nation

In print, performance and generally, I love sharing good things. For that reason, with help from B. and Sophia Deeg for my written German, I published an article on The Nation weekly, to which I'd long subscribed, in the Berlin daily, taz.

THISTLES IN THE VINEYARD by Sumaya Farhat-Naser

Palestinian botanist, activist and author Sumaya Farhat-Naser has the amazing ability to speak freely for a good hour, combining devastating news and personal observations and coping techniques into compelling and inspiring talks.

Once I'd learned enough German to read her excellent, very personal account, DISTELN IM WEINBERG [Thistles in the Vineyard], I desperately wanted to share it with Anglophone friends. For that I sought a publisher for my English translation of her diary. Unfortunately, my long and vigorous search for a publisher was fruitless. Only 3% of books published each year in the United States are translations (the figure is also low in the UK) – a dangerous paucity. If more people understood what life is like for Palestinians under occupation, foreign policy would be different. At the very least, there would be more empathy.

Here, with the kind permission of Lenos Verlag, I present three excerpts I consider representative of Sumaya Farhat-Naser's Disteln im Weinberg.