Carolin Emcke – Von den Kriegen Briefe an Freunde

Reading Carolin Emcke’s  “Echo’s of Violence: Letters from a War reporter” (Fischer Verlag 2006) gave me the experience of coming home in the world. My ungoing hunger to understand by heart, the atrocious situations and forgotten spots where people live, was answered while reading her testimonies.

Emcke shares, doubts and unreveals to us and herself the role she needs to chose as a human in this world: being the witness of our time. And by that, it becomes unevitable to stay out as an observer. She becomes, together with the photographers with whom she travels, for a while part of the civilian life in war-zones, post – war regions but also visits the favela’s where the people work and hardly live, while making our jeans and vests. She experiences many encounters with people who want to talk or listen to her, while they are never visited by someone of the Western world. She stays, listens, discusses, is in silence with them, sometimes in dangerous situations, and writes.

Without moral judgements, Emcke takes the reader with her in a very personal document about being part of this world, and not another one.

Carolin Emcke (1967) studied philosophy, politics and history. She works as a journalist and writer and lives in Berlin. www.carolin-emcke.de

 

Literatuur & Inspiratie