Nina Weller (ZfL): Dinah Nelken – Heimat auf Widerruf: Wiederentdeckung einer Charlottenburger Schriftstellerin

Born in Charlottenburg, Dinah Nelken (1900–1989) moved in the literary and journalistic circles of the Weimar Republic. She wrote novels, screenplays, and cultural columns and lived for a time in the art colony in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. After years of flight and exile in Vienna, Yugoslavia, and Italy, she returned to Berlin in 1950. Today, she is largely forgotten. Her works intertwine experiences of metropolitan life, exile, political turmoil, and personal self-assertion. Berlin, in particular, remained a central point of reference in her writing: it was a place of origin, a site of memory, and a literary home. We invite you to join us in this fascinating rediscovery. 

Reading by Julie Thiele and Roman Vetrov, students in the Acting program at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). 

Literarische Heimat Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf

Many authors who shaped the cultural life of their time spent part of their lives in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf and Charlottenburg districts. The Stadtbibliothek Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf will present some of these authors in collaboration with the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) and the Acting  program at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).

Fig. above: D.M. Nagu from the series Songs for a Future Generation (2020) (detail)