Join the Segal Center + ILB

Create  your own Reading

Be Part of the Worldwide Reading for the Dead of the Pandemic

Sept. 5th 2021

Since we cannot host the event at our Segal Theatre because of COVID restrictions we ask you to host and create a reading on Memorial Day Weekend.

The Segal Center, in collaboration with the initiator–

The International Literature Festival Berlin—

calls on families, individuals, theatres, schools, universities, cultural institutions to participate with small intimate readings in your home, neighborhood, or park in a Worldwide event for the Dead of the Corona Pandemic on September 5, 2021.

You can find suggested texts HERE

Or choose your own texts.

Send the location to [email protected] as well as

[email protected] so we can publish the readings:

Please take a photo of your reading, write a short report and send to: [email protected].

We will include it on our website.

For more than a year, the world has been in the grip of the pandemic. More than four million people worldwide have died from Covid-19. Not a day goes by when we are not confronted with statistics and curves on current deaths and illnesses. Yet, it often remains abstract numbers. The individual person and the individual stories behind them are hardly present in the public perception. Illness, death and grief have become largely invisible due to precautionary measures. Many people die alone, behind closed doors, and are buried in small circles. In many cases, there is no way for relatives and friends to say goodbye – and if they do, it is at a distance or in a digital setting.

Literature has the potential to give expression to this situation, to counter isolation at least through reception. It finds narratives away from the everyday images of horror, tells of loss from different perspectives, and helps to make the incomprehensible tangible, the intangible comprehensible.

Readings can take place anywhere, including privately in a small circle, in a school, in a cultural institution or on the radio. You can still register with your reading and the following information: Organizers, venue, time, participating actors, event language, link to your website if applicable. The email address is [email protected] as well as [email protected].

The International Literature Festival Berlin ILB has published texts online for the reading HERE and all readings taking place so far on our website, further are following soon.