Still in bed and half awake, I read a few lines from Paul Bokowski on my phone screen: “The first wall was thin. You didn’t see much. Because it was so dark. One looked from the window into the yard.” Set in the Afrikanisches Viertel in Wedding, this short story is just one of the treasures I encountered on ZfL Nachbarschaften – the dazzling online anthology devoted to “the phenomenon of [Berlin’s] neighborhoods in contemporary literature, incorporating a variety of academic disciplines.” This might sound a bit dry, but the site is in fact utterly engaging, featuring works organized by author or by Kiez. And while I’m familiar with some of the authors – rising and established literary stars are included – others are less familiar. After finishing Bokowski, I wonder where to head next. I decide to follow Mirna Funk as she descends into the station on Alexanderplatz. Afterwards, I join Jan Brandt at a kitchen table on Reichenberger Straße, where I listen in on his conversations (the dialog during an apartment viewing is so true-to-life it’s uncomfortable to read).
My own thoughts begin to wander: to the house I live in, to the people next door, one of whom told me about Nachbarschaften. For the rest of the morning, I follow Joshua Gross, Donna Stonecipher, Pascal Hugues and Lea Streisand from the Hufeisensiedlung to Hellersdorf. Afterwards, I find myself looking out of my window. There’s more light here than at Bokowski’s, and more to see: construction workers on the roof across the street, early Späti customers on the corner beside a freshly trimmed tree. Everything seems a touch more poetic, more colorful – the house, the neighborhood, the city. Thank you Internet: it’s nice that this neighborhood blog can live in you. It’s made me marvelously aware of my own city in a way that makes me feel quite fond of it – at least on this Saturday morning.
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Jonas Michel, Merle Büttner & Philipp Schlögl
Nachbarschaften is edited by Christina Ernst and Hanna Hamel and is published by the Interdisciplinary Research Network (IFV) “Stadt, Land Kiez. Neighborhoods in Contemporary Berlin Literature” at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin.
The texts are published in the original languages: English and German. The blog is continuously updated.
