The following have been nominated for the public reading of the Alfred Döblin Prize, donated by Günter Grass: Andrea Rea Arežina, Sophia Merwald, Martin Piekar, Lina Schwenk, Janna Steenfatts and Karosh Taha. The finalists will present their texts to the audience and the experts. In the late afternoon, the jury will announce the recipient of the prize, which will be awarded the following day at the Akademie der Künste. In German.

In its fourth appearance at the Akademie the trans-national KULA Compagnie presents her version of Der Dibbuk, setting the 1920 Yiddish classic into a contemporary, interreligious context. Despite the war’s breaking out during rehearsals, the mutual goal remained: to continue talking and performing with one another, to seek bringing about communication. In Dari, Algerian-Arabic, German, French, Hebrew, Russian and Yiddish with German and English surtitles.

The Alfred Döblin Prize, donated by Günter Grass, is awarded for a longer prose manuscript in progress. The award winner will be announced the day before in a public reading at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, where the finalists will present their texts to the audience and experts. In addition to a reading from the winning manuscript and a discussion with the award winner, Jan Kuhlbrodt, winner in 2023, will give a speech on Döblin. In German.

Inspired by Helga Paris’ illustrated book Diva in Grau, published in 1991, the evening is dedicated to different perspectives on the city of Halle that were created between 1982 and 1992. Poet Elke Erb, photographer Helga Paris, cameraman Thomas Plenert and director Thomas Heise show what is, and reveal the traces left in the houses and faces of Halle. With Helke Misselwitz, Hermann Beyer and Jeanette Spassova. In German.

“We are at the limit of where words are not enough and have to prove who we really are”, wrote the author Hans Erich Nossack in October 1946 to his colleague Ilse Molzahn, who had lost both her sons in the war. Eighty years later, their correspondence, published for the first time in SINN UND FORM, still provides food for thought on how to write about war and loss, responsibility and guilt. In German.

We invite you to an enjoyable and surprising path of exploration through the interior and exterior spaces of the Akademie der Künste – filled with unheard music and sound. Small, intimate concert situations in meeting rooms, silence in the concert hall, playful kinetic sound machines, improvisations, musicians on the forecourt to the academy, picnics in the Beech Garden and more. A warm welcome to everyone to share the place and the music on a long day in May.

The writer Anna Seghers lived in Berlin Adlershof for almost three decades. Her former flat in an apartment building has been open to the public as a museum since 1985. Most of her apartment remains unchanged. The extensive library can be viewed in the living room and study. In 2025, the Anna Seghers Museum will continue to open every first Sunday of the month from 11 am to 4 pm and offer guided tours in German.

The Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof (Dorotheenstadt Cemetery) is one of the most famous cemeteries in Berlin – not least because Brecht's last resting place is here. But many of his comrades-in-arms are also laid to rest here. If one were to draw threads between the graves, a densely interwoven web would emerge. The tour aims to trace these lines, references and influences. In German.