Discovering Unbearable Truths

May 1 | Austrian Cultural Forum | NYC

With Uwe Kolbe and Uljana Wolf; moderated by Susan Bernofsky

These two writers from Germany woke up one day to realize that their lives were built on some terrible lies. Uwe Kolbe discovered that his father had been spying on him for the Stasi, and Uljana Wolf’s poems explore similar historical ruptures and attendant silences. Find out how they put the truth of their lives back together, came to reinterpret their pasts, and how these understandings influenced their writing.

Cosponsored by the Martin E. Segal Theatre, The Graduate Center, CUNY

PEN Blogs

• Deji Olukotun:
This panel was billed as a discussion about the discovery of ‘unbearable truths’, as mediated through the milieu of the former German Democratic Republic.  It was much more about poetry, and that was fine with me. [More]