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The Walberberg Seminar has a long and illustrious history. First started 20 years ago, by the late great Professor Malcolm Bradbury, it originally took place in a monastery, where, I’m reliably informed, that the accommodation was a little, well, monastic. For three days, a group of German academics, translators and publishers got together with a group of British writers for the purpose of discussions, readings and cultural exchange. It must have been worth the Spartan surroundings because a new batch of Brits was eagerly flown out year after year. A glance through the list of previous participants is like a ‘who’s who’ of British writing over the last two decades.
I traveled out with Carlo Gebler, Romesh Gunesekera, Sinead Morrisey, Glenn Patterson and Adam Thorpe, some of the best writers around at the moment. This year, for the first time, the Seminar relocated to the Academie Schmockvitz, outside Berlin, set in beautiful woodlands with a pleasingly remote ambience. It was a bitterly cold, snowy January weekend, and there was something rather wonderful about feeling cut off from the rest of the world while we read from our work and discussed this year’s theme: Home.
I had the good luck to be accidentally given the best room in the building, with a stunning view of the frozen lake. Ah, the lake. I have been on many trips now, but this was the first one (as far as I know) where I have made a British Council Director shriek in alarm. Along with my fellow authors, I coaxed a nervous Susie Nicklin onto the ice. It was our lunch break. The sun shone. The air was frosty. The ice around us crackled. ‘Look at you!’ said Susie, as I twirled improbably, ‘You’re beaming!’
I beamed for most of Walberberg 2006. I beamed as I tucked into mountains of potato and the local red wine at every meal. I beamed as I topped up on coffee and cake. I beamed as I chatted to the participants who as well as being clever, fluent, high-achieving professionals also seemed to be incredibly nice people interested in what I had to say. I beamed as I watched the cream of German intellect dancing to the theme tune to The Commitments in the bar on the last night. It’s possible I beamed in my sleep. During our final session, a panel discussion, we were all asked to discuss our interpretation of the word ‘home’. I was not trying to curry favour with the participants when I said that I had had a moment of pure joy the previous afternoon, when I lay on my bed in my huge bedroom and thought what a great privilege it was to take part in Walberberg. It did feel like home.
Louise Doughty’s latest book is
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