Dear readers,
lauter niemand, whose 10th anniversary issue we present here in English translation, is one of the most widely circulated magazines in Germany to publish exclusively fiction and poetry. With its unpretentious format, it is also one of the most accessible. The focus of this issue is on younger writers, those whom lauter niemand first published as unknowns and who have gone on to make a name for themselves over the decade of lauter niemand’s existence. Many are still regulars at the “lauter niemand literaturlabor” and form part of the growing circle of writers, musicians, artists and friends in which lauter niemand finds its echo.
These writers have more in common than a broad spectrum of prizes, publications and readers: their names stand for the unmistakable, personal voice in which their work speaks to the reader.
But what is “voice”? – What we read with all our senses, the way we have learned to interpret these sensations, what we regard as external to ourselves, what we understand as a part of our self: out of all these things we form the gesamtkunstwerk of our personal cosmos. Its space of resonance, of (self-) definition, gives rise to a sound: to a soul, one could say.
But when we read, is it to discover the inner workings of the cosmos we create, or to despair at the chimaeras of a past we no longer inhabit, at the mirror image of our expectations? Authors take the reality they live, think and dream and translate it into the medium of writing, seeking to share its driving forces with their readers. Their presence, their unique testimony to our time, is revealed in the subjects and means they choose, in their innate tone: the voice.
How can this voice be echoed in a different language, in different contexts, without losing its soul? This is the question explored by the authors and translators of no man’s land.

Adrijana Bohocki
Isabel Fargo Cole
Ernesto Castillo
Clemens Kuhnert
Berlin, October 2, 2006