How to be happy in Berlin? A 1929 English guide told visitors from all around the world what to do in order to find happiness in this buzzing new metropolis that rivalled London and Paris. As the anniversary of the 1920s approaches, we invite you to map the presence of English writers such as Virginia Woolf, Alix Strachey and Christopher Isherwood in Berlin’s cosmopolitan cafés, famous scientific institutes, avant-garde cinemas and seedy cabarets. Literaturhaus Berlin presents the meeting places of the lively cultural scene of the time, including Romanisches Café and Eldorado Cabaret, where British visitors held debates and wrote, drank and partied. At Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin the focus is on politics and psychoanalysis, as well as pleasure. Here we follow Virginia Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson, and Christopher Isherwood’s friend William Robson-Scott, who was spied upon by National Socialist students at Berlin’s university.
The exhibition is bilingual and can be visited from 15.6.–31.7.2021 at Literaturhaus Berlin and at Grimm-Zentrum Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
The full programme of live events is available on the Literaturhaus website. Recorded events are available in the Literaturhaus archive page. The website Happy in Berlin provides a lasting legacy of the project and enables visitors to map the presence of English writers in the city.
The opening event (Tue, 22 June 2021) with Gesa Stedman, Stefano Evangelista and British Ambassador Jill Gillard was streamed online.
Exhibition
Admission: Free
Opening hours: Mon - Fri, 09:00 - 18:00 Uhr
Venue: Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum | Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3 | 10117 Berlin
Please note, visitors are required to adhere to the current COVID-19 hygiene and social distancing regulations when visiting the exhibition.
Contact
Catherine Smith
Centre for British Studies | Humboldt-Universität, Berlin
Tel.: +49 (0)30 209 399 040
catherine.smith@rz.hu-berlin.de
