TE23 Double Feature

Trafika Europe 23 — Double Feature Editors’ Welcome After a short pause, we are pleased to be bringing our journal back with a double feature! This issue presents firstly a selection of Eco-Lit that explores the importance which authors from across Europe are placing on the environment. Secondly, we showcase literature from Germany, a country with a wealth of literary production. We hope you enjoy the various genres and styles of this double feature as Trafika Europe continues to shine the spotlight on some of the best new literature from Europe. Our Eco-Lit focus begins with Ilija Trojanow ’s novel, The Lamentations of Zeno . We are transported to the Antarctic on a cruise ship where the scientist and main character, Zeno, shows the wealthy passengers on board how quickly this little-explored continent is disappearing before our eyes. Rather than taking us to an unknown place, Loranne Vella transports us to 2064, a year in which Europe as we know it no longer exists. Follow a series of social and environmental events through the lens of Petrel and his camera. French author Sandrine Collette explores a flight from the urban as the main character of The Forests , Corentin, ends up returning to the woods and family of his childhood after a catastrophic event leaves the city uninhabitable. Despite the apocalyptic setting, Collette shows how human perseverance and ingenuity can create new beginnings with very

little. The feature continues with a gripping set of poems from Philip Burton ’s collection, Gaia Warnings . We are reminded about the beauty of nature and why it’s so important and timely to take action to save it. Eco-Lit ends with Tomas Espedal’s, The Year, a novel written as a poem. The text explores the author’s efforts to balance his interior with the outside world. After a brief intermission, our feature of literature from Germany begins with Anne Weber ’s non-fiction work Fatherland . Weber explores identity and investigates how much our present is truly tied to people and events in our past. Anke Laufer ’s two short stories, “The Silver Moth” and “The Island”, delve into how a place can be so impactful for one person despite it having little to no importance for others. Whether a lost love connection or simply unease, each story will transport you with its vivid descriptions and universal themes. Selim Özdoğan ’s 52 Factory Lane is the second part of the Anatolian Blues trilogy. This novel explores the life of an immigrant living and working in Germany to fund building her home in Turkey. Özdoğan shows us how homes can be everywhere, yet the feeling of a home always seems out of reach. River Clyde by Simone Buccholz takes a similar twist of events when detective Chastity Riley returns to Scotland to uncover her family’s past. Can the exploration of her family’s loss and violence be the only way for Riley to move forward into the future? To round off our German feature, we have a touching excerpt of Katja Oskamp ’s Marzahn, Mon Amour . Oskamp retells her journey into a new career that she begins as a middle-aged woman, contrasting her own narrative with the diverse lives of people in

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