Monday 9 June 2014

Football for German Lit Lovers

The World Cup starts soon, right, and the literary world's football fans have it covered. The World Cup of Literature pitches books from each participating country against each other. Germany is fielding a heavyweight with W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz (trans. Anthea Bell), pretty tough to beat. And Switzerland is another strong contender with Urs Widmer's My Mother's Lover (trans. Donal McLaughlin). We shall see which titles get through to the second round in due course.

You can also follow the German National Writers' Team around Brazil, as they do something or other presumably funded by the DFB. It seems to involve meat and visits to stadiums, but they'll be sharing their experiences back in Berlin this coming Wednesday. Lots of very nice lads – here they are getting shouted at by their coach.

And finally, Buzzfeed has seventeen glorious hairdos on German national players since 1954. Gloriously un-proofread, but it's not winning or losing that counts, it's hairstyles.

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