This essay looks at the function of photography in Sebald’s literary and critical work. It focuses on the collaborative relationship between Sebald and the photographer Michael Brandon-Jones at the University of East Anglia and details the initial phase of their creative partnership from 1982. With particular attention given to the role photography in his published poetry and literary criticism published prior to Schwindel. Gefühle. (Vertigo) in 1990 it provides an account of the development of Sebald’s early image / text montages and the role of Brandon-Jones in their creation. By documenting Sebald’s interest in collecting images of ‘Art Brut’ during the 1980s, this essay argues that rather than being something the writer incorporates into his texts, the photographic image is the creative pivot around which Sebald reorientates his entire creative practice.

Given the controversies surrounding Brecht's life and politics it is no surprise that he turns up in various degrees of fictionalization in works of his fellow writers. It is also little surprise that the fictionalized “Brecht” rarely transcends caricature. Some of the authors simply don't seem to know much about him and have little grasp of his work. However, comparing the historical Brecht to his fictional revenants is not the focus of this paper. After a survey of the various works in which "Brecht" appears, the paper discusses the more ambitious transformations, in the works of Lion Feuchtwanger (Success), Günter Grass (The Plebeians), and Peter Weiss (The Aesthetics of Resistance), evaluating them on their own merits.

This chapter investigates the nature of the well-documented influence of the German playwright, theorist and director Bertolt Brecht on the Syrian playwright Sa’dallah Wannous. In addition to examining theoretical and indirect links between the two, such as Wannous’ interviews and friendships in France with Brechtian theatre artists and scholars such as Jean-Marie Serreau, Jean-Louis Barrault, Peter Weiss and Bernard Dort, this chapter looks at Wannous’ creation of innovative hybrid works that utilized Brechtian dramaturgical techniques alongside traditional Arabic performative modes. The chapter also analyzes manifestations of these re-workings of Brechtian dramaturgical models in performance in two very different stagings, one in former East Germany and the other in the former Soviet Union, of one of Wannous’ most innovative plays, The Adventure of the Head of Mamlouk Jabir. It also highlights Wannous’ participation in the Brecht Dialogue in 1968 in East Berlin, which commemorated the playwright’s seventieth birthday, and the documents and theatrical programs from that event that were recently found in Wannous’ personal library, which is now housed at the American University of Beirut.