“It’s pathetic / to hate going home alone and that’s why I try so hard to stay,” writes Lauren Oyler in her songs to nights at Zweiners and Deutsche Bahn compartments, in Berlin Review’s Reader 5.

Don’t be a loner—join us as we celebrate our beautiful fifth print edition: with talks that help make sense of our new age of cruelty, chilled drinks, freshly printed magazines, music and mingling.

—Esra Akkaya with Onur Erdur on multilingual escapism and on why we should all read Tezer Özlü this winter (auf Deutsch) —> read Esra’s profile of Özlü in our Reader 5

—Lauren Oyler on how to sing the body electric, Neukölln —> read Lauren’s poems, a world première, in Reader 5

—Didier Fassin in conversation with BR editor Tobias Haberkorn on how to stand up for Palestinians and other brutalized groups in high academia; and on his personal trajectory via Médecins Sans Frontières and Calcutta to Princeton University —> read Didier’s essay “Refusing Violence” in Reader 5

Talks in German & English, drinks & snacks, and plenty to talk about—join the conversation.

Admission free; seating limited

Didier Fassin is in Berlin with the help of FU Berlin where he’ll take part in a workshop on Dec 12—thanks to Robin Celikates. Special thanks Mathias Zeiske and daadgalerie.