Conspirations & Confabulations

Cordelia Dvorák and Hans Jürgen Balmes

When asked about his vocation, John Berger usually described himself as neither a novelist nor a critic, neither a poet nor an essayist, but a storyteller. This deceptively simple self-description implies a whole programme, namely the urge to work collaboratively rather than individually. For, as the title of one of his last books, Confabulations, suggests, Berger understood storytelling as essentially intersubjective, communal and transactional. In this light, it is not surprising that his lifelong experiments with multiple ways of telling were so often conducted in collaboration with like-minded confabulators, or co-conspirators. 

In their conversation, Cordelia Dvorák and Hans Jürgen Balmes – two of Berger’s friends and collaborator – share their recollections and experiences of working with Berger. Selected sequences from Cordelia Dvorák’s documentary portrait, John Berger, or, The Art of Looking (2016 / BBC, arte), in which Hans Jürgen Balmes also participated, as well as some of the drawings that Berger presented to his German translator, Hans Jürgen Balmes, will illustrate the confabulation that these co-conspirators will spin.

Hans Jürgen Balmes studied Comparative Literature in Bonn, published commentaries on German Romantic poets, was editor-at-large at S. Fischer in Frankfurt and co-editor of the literary magazine Neue Rundschau, and translates from the English, including works by John Berger, Robert Hass, W. S. Merwin, and Martine Bellen. Published The Rhine. Biography of a River in 2021.

Cordelia Dvorák studied literature, philosophy and theatre in Paris and Munich and photography at the Ostkreuzschule Berlin. She is a writer, director and producer of award-winning international film and theatre productions, radio plays and video installations. As a director, dramaturge and set designer, she has worked as well in more than eighty international opera, theatre and dance productions.  The collaboration with John Berger on her documentary portrait on the occasion of his 90th birthday was the last cinematic collaboration Berger realized. He died 2 months after the premiere of the film.