Herta Müller & Marcel Beyer – LANGUAGE

Is language the last remaining freedom of the oppressed and what are its modes of resistance? Or is it instead an expression of power, which silences dissidents, through the linguistic means of bureaucracy and through attributions, ordinances and categorizations? Language holds both: emancipation and the freedom to act on the one hand and the brutal exercise of power and tyranny on the other.

In Dictionary of Now #8, Nobel laureate in literature Herta Müller and Georg-Büchner awardee Marcel Beyer talk about literary facets of language and analyze its significance in times of hardened political fronts.

The conversation will be moderated by literary critic and author Verena Auffermann. The dialogic debate will include excerpts from the works of Oskar Pastior, Friederike Mayröcker, Michel Leiris, Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt (in dialogue with Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs) as well as the two contributors.