Publications

Communication between the well-known Svendborg chess partners recalls the royal game: It employed tiring tactics, surprise attacks, retreat, strategic partnership, checkmate – and a new game. The essays and artistic commentary in the book turn the spotlight on an extraordinary constellation, in which Benjamin and Brecht appear as contemporaries in a century of extremes. They developed models for art, for politics, thought processes and for life itself; sometimes "extreme on a trial basis" and sometimes playful. With texts by Minou Arjomand, Broomberg & Chanarin, Zoe Beloff, Durs Grünbein, Barbara Hahn, Alexander Kluge, Mark Lammert, Bernd-Peter Lange, Burkhardt Lindner, Thomas Martin, Ursula Marx, Frank-M. Raddatz, Jan Philipp Reemtsma, Kristin Schulz, Marcus Steinweg, Steffen Thiemann, B. K. Tragelehn, Edmund de Waal and Erdmut Wizisla.

Benjamin and Brecht decided to write a crime novel in autumn 1933. Steffen Thiemann has turned Brecht’s plot into woodcuts and set down Benjamin’s ideas as footnotes. It’s a story about blackmail that ends fatally. With texts by Steffen Thiemann and Erdmut Wizisla.

Volume 3 of this notebook edition faithfully publishes four notebooks from 1921 for the first time. The focus is on Brecht’s third major work for the theatre, Im Dickicht (In the Jungle). In addition, numerous unknown drafts, notes about readings and private debates can also be found. The editors expand on Brecht’s entries in detailed text commentaries, while providing new knowledge about his work and biography.