German vice-chancellor Robert Habeck is a writer, with more than twenty books to his name: fiction, drama, literary criticism, and non-fiction. An author who becomes second-in-command in one of Europe’s most powerful nations is something extraordinary. It is tempting, therefore, to find parallels between his literature and his politics, to read his fiction for glimpses of Green political futures, to chart a literary turn in German politics. It is tempting, too, to read his literary criticism for similar clues. He has pondered aesthetics and genre theory; we wonder which political genres he will fit, and which he might break. He promises newness — but a newness of what? How experimental can a literary politician be?
Online, pigeon water is what we swim in and slather on ourselves.
On the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Europe of European integration. An excerpt from The Origins of European Integration: The Pre-history of Today’s European Union, 1937–1951.
Ramallah, downtown, fifth floor. The phone rings and the caller’s number appears on the screen. It’s an unknown number. And yet a call that comes at this hour must be answered.
رام الله، وسط البلد، الطابق الخامس. يرن الهاتف ويظهر رقم المتّصل على الشاشة. إنه ليس لأحد معارفنا، فالرقم غير معروف. مع ذلك، يتطلّبُ اتصال هاتفي في ساعة مبكِّرةٍ كهذه الردَّ عليه.