Flowers for Otello: On the Crimes that Came Out of Jena
- Event type
- Other Events
- Speakers
- Esther Dischereit (Writer), Iain Galbraith (Translator), İpek İpekçioğlu (DJ)
- Event dates
- Contact
- jane.lewin@sas.ac.uk 020 7862 8966
Esther Dischereit’s ‘Klagelieder’ (lamentations) and opera libretto Flowers for Otello (originally published in 2014 and recently translated into English by Iain Galbraith) respond to the series of right-wing killings in Germany perpetrated by the National Socialist Underground between 1998-2007.
The victims included eight citizens of Turkish origin, a Greek citizen, and a German policewoman. Not until 2011 did the German public learn that the police had ignored signs pointing to the real perpetrators, a neo-Nazi group called the National Socialist Underground, and that important files, possibly containing evidence implicating state agencies, had disappeared from the archives of Federal Police and intelligence organisations.
Esther Dischereit, one of the pre-eminent German-Jewish voices of the post-Holocaust generation, will read from her book and discuss with Iain Galbraith the practices, politics and limits of translation and solidarity in responding to racially motivated violence. The evening will also include an introduction to the history of the Flowers for Otello project and a performance by DJ İpek İpekçioğlu, translating Dischereit’s work into sound and movement.
This event will take place at the Goethe-Institut London, 50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, SW7 2PH. Attendance is free, but advance online registration is required.
The evening is generously sponsored by the Goethe-Institut and the Keith Spalding Trust (Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies).
Image of Esther Dischereit © Bettina Straub
