German-Hungarian literary chanson evening Bridging Europe: 2014 Germany

Hungarian literature has a great deal for which to thank this year's guest country of the Bridging Europe Festival at the Palace of Arts: the road to world literature runs through Germany. This evening of living cultural relationships promises a lively and informal programme on the 25 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. A night in which Terézia Mora and Ingo Schulze, who are well known in Hungary, chat with Hungarian writers who are also popular in Germany, such as Péter Esterházy,... Zsófia Bán and György Dragomán, moderated by György Dalos, acting as the "motor” behind these literary relationships. The stories, novels, dramas and audio dramas of Terézia Mora, the German writer of Hungarian origin, speak of cruelty and mercy, that is, the helplessness of human existence, while the novellas and novels of Dresden-born Ingo Schulze can be read as a great chronicle of the German change of regime. His more recent essays hold up a mirror to the society of capitalism and globalisation that came later. Both authors have had their most important works appear in Hungarian.
Playing chansons, couplets and global hits, and attracting an ever broader audience, the HANEM Orchestra not only rearranges the songs, but also reinterprets them, with contemporary poets writing new lyrics for them. This time - specifically for this occasion - they have chosen from the wealth of German song, from Schumann to Rammstein, as scored by Árpád Kákonyi. The evening, directed by Réka Pelsőczy, will be made complete by the background scenery designed by Zsolt Czakó and Balázs Balogh.

The programme is made possible with support from the Goethe Institute.