Mirror and Mara / Mirror and Mee

10.01.2026 / 19:00 – 21:00
With Don Mee Choi

During her time as a DAAD Fellow in 2019, Don Mee Choi researched and worked on Mirror Nation, the third and final volume of her KOR–US trilogy, following Hardly War (2016) and DMZ Colony (2020). Here, the poet reflects on the violent colonial and neocolonial history of South Korea, with particular attention to the horrors of the Gwangju Uprising in May 1980. In Mirror Nation, photographs, news footage, and cultural artifacts comingle with a poetry of grief that is both personal and collective. Mara Genschel’s most recent book, Das Narzisstische Skript (The Narcissistic Script), for the first time brings together the scripts and concepts that have underpinned the poet’s literary performances – both notorious and legendary – since 2012.

The two poets will perform in parallel on the same stage, translating each other’s aesthetics. “Don Mee” and “Mara” are embedded sonically in “Mirror.” This is their first “mirror-performance” in a series that’s to come in Berlin and elsewhere. Please join us for an evening of Mirror & Mara / Mirror & Mee.

Event in English and German
Free admission

daadgalerie
Oranienstraße 161
Berlin-Kreuzberg

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of the KOR-US trilogy: Mirror Nation (2024), which was shortlisted for the 2025 PEN-Heaney Prize and received the 2025 CLMP Firecracker Award; the National Book Award winning collection DMZ Colony (2020); and Hardly War (2016). She is a recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations, as well as the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. Her translation of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry won the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. She is currently based in Berlin.

Mara Genschel, born in Bonn, lives in Berlin and works on the performative dimension of literature in numerous publications and interdisciplinary projects. She has been a fellow of the International Writing Program (Iowa) and the International Writer’s Workshop (Hong Kong), among others, and has received a work grant from the German Literature Fund (Deutscher Literaturfonds). In 2022, she bewildered the jury of the Bachmann Prize with her appearance. Her most recent publications include Midlife-Prosa (Engeler, 2024) and Das narzisstische Skript (text + kritik, 2025), and she also writes a regular column for SWR Kultur. Since autumn 2024, she teaches at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne.