The Borderless Book Club in Berlin

For our February reading, let's go to Italy, back in time.

Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno, in English The Path to the Nest of Spiders, is the first novel by Italian author Italo Calvino, published in 1947.
It is set during World War II in a small coastal town in Liguria, Italy, at the height of the Italian Resistance against Nazi and fascist forces.
The story is told largely through the experiences of a young boy named Pin, an orphan who lives with his older sister and is often excluded or mocked by the adults around him because of his sister’s relationships with German soldiers.
Calvino presents this harsh historical period through Pin’s eyes, blending gritty reality with moments that feel almost surreal or dreamlike.
His narrative combines neorealist sensibilities with poetic touches, making this both a historical portrayal of wartime Italy and a deeply human story of innocence, loss, and resilience.

About the author
Italo Calvino (1923–1985) was an Italian writer born in Cuba to Italian parents and raised in Italy. He took part in the Italian Resistance during World War II, an experience that deeply influenced his early work, including Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno. He began writing within the tradition of Italian neorealism but soon moved beyond it, developing a distinctive style marked by imagination, clarity, and intellectual playfulness.
Over time, Calvino became known for blending realism with fantasy, allegory, and formal experimentation, as seen in works like Invisible Cities and If on a winter’s night a traveler. His writing often explores themes such as storytelling itself, the relationship between order and chaos, and the search for meaning in modern life. With a style that is both precise and imaginative, Calvino is widely regarded as one of the most original and influential writers of the 20th century.

About the location of the event
It will be announced at least 2 days before the event takes place with all the details.

Event contribution alert
The event might require a small participation fee (3-5 euros) or the purchase of something to eat or drink in case we are hosted by a coffee shop. I will make sure to communicate that in advance.

Ahhhhh, nostalgia!

We jump to Bulgaria in this third meeting of our Book Club and explore the delicate and intricate relationship that we humans entertain with our past and memories.
Time Shelter imagines a world where memory and time take center stage, driven by a compelling idea: what would happen if people could literally live in the past?

About the book
In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a “clinic for the past” that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a “time shelter”—a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.

About the author
Georgi Gospodinov (born 1968 in Yambol, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian writer, poet, and essayist known for his reflective, playful, and philosophically rich style. He studied Bulgarian philology at Sofia University and first gained recognition as a poet before achieving international success as a novelist. His writing often explores memory, time, identity, melancholy, and the everyday absurdities of modern life, blending irony with deep emotional insight.
Gospodinov’s prose is marked by fragmentation, humor, and a strong sensitivity to personal and collective history, especially the legacy of Eastern Europe after communism. His novels Natural Novel and Time Shelter (Cronorifugio), which won the 2023 International Booker Prize, established him as one of the most important contemporary European writers. He is widely admired for his ability to turn intimate experiences and historical reflection into innovative, accessible literature.

About the location of the event
It will be announced at least 2 days before the event takes place with all the details.

Event contribution alert
The event might require a small participation fee (3-5 euros) or the purchase of something to eat or drink in case we are hosted by a coffee shop. I will make sure to communicate that in advance.

For our April gathering, let us delve into Rushdie’s “largest aesthetic achievement,” according to Harold Bloom and what scholars describe as fundamentally a study of alienation and hybrid identity: The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

About the Book
The Satanic Verses is a complex, magical-realist novel that intertwines multiple storylines involving two Indian expatriates — Gibreel Farishta, a famous Bollywood actor, and Saladin Chamcha, an immigrant voice actor in Britain — who survive the mid-air bombing of a hijacked plane and fall into a surreal fantasy world. Their experiences blur dream and reality, exploring altered identities, spiritual visions, and personal transformations. One of the key narratives involves a mythical city and a prophet figure named Mahound, whose revealed “verses” and tribal conflicts echo and reimagine early Islamic history in dream sequences that question faith, revelation, and authority.

About the Author
Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and essayist, born in 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.
He was educated in England and he rose to international prominence with Midnight’s Children (1981), a landmark novel combining history and magical realism to depict India’s post-independence experience; it won the Booker Prize and is considered one of the most influential novels of the 20th century.
Rushdie is known for his imaginative prose, layered narratives, and exploration of themes such as identity, migration, cultural hybridity, and freedom of expression.
His 1988 novel The Satanic Verses brought worldwide attention and controversy, significantly affecting his life and career.
Despite these challenges, he has continued to produce acclaimed fiction and nonfiction, including The Moor’s Last Sigh, Shalimar the Clown, and the memoir Knife (2023), and is widely regarded as a major figure in contemporary world literature.

About the Meeting
We will approach the text thoughtfully and without preconceived agendas, experiencing it as a work of literature first and foremost—one that invites reflection, careful interpretation, and respect for diverse perspectives, without seeking to provoke controversy or advance any political or polemical stance.

About the location
It will be announced at least 2 days before the event takes place with all the details.

Event contribution alert
The event might require a small participation fee (3-5 euros) or the purchase of something to eat or drink in case we are hosted by a coffee shop. I will make sure to communicate that in advance.