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.

German National Writers' Team Reading

Never mind nanowrimo - bring it on for the autonama.

You can catch three accomplished members of the German writers' team this coming Thursday at the me Collectors' Room in Berlin. It starts at 8, and promises Moritz Rinke reading from his debut novel Der Mann, der durch das Jahrhundert fiel. Florian Werner introducing his upcoming non-fiction book Dunkle Materie – Die Geschichte der Scheiße. And Jan Brandt proving in his short story "Der Blitz" that comic collectors have to decide on one publisher – after all, you can't support two football teams either, can you?

Apparently they'll then be presenting their very own set of Panini football stickers. It should be the start of a series of readings by team members, in a nice space overlooking their practice grounds.

Now I hate to complain (as you know), but they haven't done a huge amount of publicity for this event. And the last time they tried to run it, only me and two other lonely spinsters turned up, so they cancelled on us. Admittedly, that was during the World Cup, perhaps not the best date for a football-related reading. So maybe this time there'll be a few more WAGs, aging pop stars, Russian oligarchs and the like in attendance.

Writers on the Pitch (and on the Pull)

Despite my weakness for testosterone-soaked writing, I'm not a huge football fan (that's soccer to you, septic tanks*). So the European Writers' Cup wasn't really on my radar. But it is now.

It sounds more like fantasy football of a slightly twisted kind: Patrick Neate versus Thomas Brussig, Stefano Sardo versus Robert Menasse, Peter Zilahy versus Tommy Olofsson. But no, it's the real deal - eight teams of hot-blooded writers from England, Germany, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Sweden and newcomer Turkey are meeting up at the end of April in Unna, Germany, for the Ruhr-Lit Cup 2010.

My favourite thing about it is that the games are flanked by readings by the players - on the subjects of football and luuurve. And to uphold that fine tradition of bad puns in sports writing, they have the excruciating titles of "Literature on the Pitch" and "Literature on the Pull".

All of which confronts me with my personal equivalent to Norman Tebbit's "cricket test" - whether to support England, Germany - or the reigning champions Sweden?

*This is Cockney rhyming slang. I'm reliably informed that despite my faith in humanity, not everyone in the world understands what it means. Sorry about that.