Episodes

  • Deborah Feldman on Germany's Strange Love for Jews

    Deborah Feldman on Germany's Strange Love for Jews
    Apr 7 2026
    Lauren Oyler talks to Deborah Feldman, author of the memoir Unorthodox and longtime Berliner, about her essay "For the Love of Jews," published in the new issue of Berlin Review. They discuss German philo-Semitism, what Feldman calls a "fetishized compassion" for Jews, how she became a coveted fixture in the German media landscape, and what her experience reveals about the country's complicated relationship with Jewish identity. They also talk about Gaza, the German government's support for Israel, and whether Feldman plans to stay in Germany at all.
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    1 hr
  • Konsumiert, nicht geschätzt — Deborah Feldman und Nora Haddada über Minderheiten und Solidarität

    Konsumiert, nicht geschätzt — Deborah Feldman und Nora Haddada über Minderheiten und Solidarität
    Mar 28 2026
    Tobias Haberkorn spricht mit Deborah Feldman und Nora Haddada live vor Publikum auf der Leipziger Buchmesse über Minderheiten, Vergleiche und die Tücken der Solidarität. Noras Essay für die Berlin Review untersucht William Gardner Smiths Roman The Stone Face von 1963 — über einen schwarzen Amerikaner, der in Paris dem Rassismus zu entkommen glaubt, bis er sieht, wie die Algerier um ihn herum behandelt werden. Deborahs Essay For the Love of Jews handelt von ihren Jahren in Deutschland und der schleichenden Erkenntnis, nicht geschätzt, sondern konsumiert zu werden. Zusammen fragen sie: Was bedeutet es, wenn die Zuneigung einer Gesellschaft zu einer Minderheit eine andere verdeckt?
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    59 mins
  • Perfection and the Last Gasp of Authenticity

    Perfection and the Last Gasp of Authenticity
    Mar 20 2026
    Tobias Haberkorn and Lauren Oyler discuss Vincenzo Latronico's _Perfection_, a novel originally written in Italian about a millennial couple's life in Berlin that became a huge success in the Anglophone literary world. Lauren and Tobias discuss why the book is so polarizing, what it says about authenticity and whether the Berlin depicted in the novel even exists anymore.
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    37 mins
  • OSCARS 2026 - The Sentimental Value of Marty Supreme

    OSCARS 2026 - The Sentimental Value of Marty Supreme
    Mar 12 2026
    In the first episode of Airlift, a new show from Berlin Review, Tobias Haberkorn and Lauren Oyler discuss two films nominated for nine Academy Awards each: Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value and Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme. They explore what both films reveal about the widening cultural rift between the United States and Europe, family stories generational trauma, and the role of masculinity.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • «Tod den Linken» – Damon Taleghani über die iranische Diaspora

    «Tod den Linken» – Damon Taleghani über die iranische Diaspora
    Mar 9 2026
    Seit Anfang 2026 dominiert der Iran die Nachrichten. Wie wirkt sich diese Situation auf die iranische Diaspora in Deutschland aus? Zu Gast ist Damon Taleghani, Musiker und Autor in Berlin. Er spricht mit Berlin Review Editor Tobias Haberkorn über seinen Essay «Tod dem Tod. Es lebe das Leben», der zeigt, wie sich der Protestslogan «Tod dem Schah» aus den 1970er Jahren unter den Anhängern des im Exil lebenden Schah-Sohns in sein Gegenteil verwandeln konnte.
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    41 mins
  • Writers Read: Lianna Mark on Perfection

    Writers Read: Lianna Mark on Perfection
    Mar 7 2026
    In this episode of Berlin Review Audio, writer Lianna Mark reads her essay "Better Living Through Self-Curation," originally published in the winter online edition of Berlin Review. The piece responds to Vincenzo Latronico’s widely discussed novel Perfection, which was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize after the publication of its English translation. In her essay, Mark looks beyond the polarized reactions to the novel and examines the cultural economy behind authenticity. What does it mean to perform sincerity in a literary marketplace that rewards stories that are easily packaged and exported? And how does self-curation shape not only our lives but also the narratives that circulate globally?
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    18 mins
  • Vom Aushalten des Krieges: Ein Gespräch mit Yevgenia Belorusets

    Vom Aushalten des Krieges: Ein Gespräch mit Yevgenia Belorusets
    Feb 27 2026
    In dieser Episode spricht Tobias Haberkorn mit der ukrainischen Autorin und Fotografin Yevgenia Belorusets über ihre Heimatstadt Kiew im dritten und bald vierten Kriegsjahr.
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    43 mins
  • Writers Read: Logan February in conversation with Miriam Stoney

    Writers Read: Logan February in conversation with Miriam Stoney
    Feb 14 2026
    One of the first essays published in Berlin Review was Logan February's "Sans Souci" In this episode the Nigerian poet and essayist reads an excerpt from the piece, written while living in Berlin on a DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Fellowship. The essay begins with a walk through Sanssouci Park in Potsdam and continues into a meditation on exile, colonial inheritance, loneliness as a luxury and what it means to stand inside and outside a place at once. After reading an excerpt of the essay, Logan is joined by the writer and translator Miriam Stoney for a conversation about translation, ghosts, poetic license and the tension around what language can and cannot express. You can read the rest of Logan February's essay "Sans Souci" at blnreview.de
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    28 mins