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Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship for Literature

Moodboard from Hans Balmes, Editor-at-Large at S. Fischer Verlag. (Poem by Nancy Campbell)

The Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship for Literature was instituted at the Freie Universität Berlin in 1998 by the publishers S. Fischer in association with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Freie Universität Berlin and the Veranstaltungsforum of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. In addition to teaching at Freie Universität, the author holds a special Guest Professorship Lecture in Berlin and reads in further cities at various literary events.

Literatures of the World

The guest professorship is intended to promote the dissemination and critical analysis of world literature. It gives students at Freie Universität Berlin the chance to create literature with internationally renowned authors. The results of this collaboration have been documented and published in Edition AVL.

The most recent publication is the volume "Double Exposures". A collection of texts written in the seminar of Madeleine Thien and Rawi Hage in the summer semester 2019.

Summer Term

For the first time since the Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship was founded, we will not have anyone as a guest in Berlin.The Chilean writer Lina Meruane, whom we had been looking forward to very much, cannot travel to Germany for an indefinite period of time due to the Covid-19-pandemic. Since the professorship lives from the encounter and direct exchange with the students, there is unfortunately no alternative and Lina postpones her stay.We use this time and publish "Home Stories" on the homepage of the professorship: thoughts and impressions of our previous guests, the students, our partners. How do they deal with the current situation and what is it doing with them?

Bernardo Carvalho reads from his novel, Photo: Phil Dera

Bernardo Carvalho and Rafael Cardoso at the daad Galerie, Photo: Phil Dera

Bernardo Carvalho and Rafael Cardoso, Photo: Phil Dera

Bernardo Carvalho, Photo: Phil Dera

Photo: Phil Dera

Bernardo Carvalho reads from his novel, Photo: Phil Dera

Bernardo Carvalho and Rafael Cardoso at the daad Galerie, Photo: Phil Dera

Photo: Phil Dera

Rafael Cardoso, Photo: Phil Dera

Bernardo Carvalho and Rafael Cardoso, Photo: Phil Dera

Photo: Phil Dera

Winter Term

Last winter semester the Brazilian writer, journalist and playwright Bernardo Carvalho was our guest. Carvalho, born in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, initially worked as a journalist and foreign correspondent for the Brazilian daily newspaper "Folha de São Paulo" in Paris and New York. When his post was cancelled due to the Brazilian economic crisis, he spontaneously decided to stay in New York for a few months to start his career as a writer.

His debut Aberração, a collection of short stories that was immediately nominated for the country's most important literary prize, appeared in 1993. In this volume, the leitmotifs already emerge, which in many variations run through the 11 following novels: Secrets to be revealed, the past that permeates the present, poetry and truth that are inextricably entangled, the play with different perspectives and identities.