We gave the firm a selection of chapbooks for them to test in their most lucrative machines for a period of four weeks… In Berlin-Wedding, of all places, we thought apprehensively. But our fears were groundless. Even today, the vending machine in the Gesundbrunnen S-Bahn station has our highest sales.

MARC DEGENS, author of novels, short stories, essays, poems and columns, was born in 1971 in Essen and lives in Bonn. He is editorial director of the SuKuLTuR publishing house and publisher of its “Schöner Lesen“ series of 125 works by mostly young German authors that are sold through vending machines in the Berlin subway system. After living in Armenia for three years, Degens was writer-in-residence in Novi Sad, Serbia. Degens' collection of columns first published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, titled Unsere Popmoderne (2005), presents excerpts from 28 fictional works of contemporary literature with commentary on their fictional authors. His latest works are the novel, Das kaputte Knie Gottes (2011). -> www.marc-degens.de TESS LEWIS has translated eight books and numerous essays and articles from French and German. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Alois Hotschnig, Julya Rabinowich, Lukas Bärfuss, Philippe Jaccottet, Pascal Bruckner, and Jean-Luc Benoziglio among others. She has been awarded a PEN Translation Fund grant and an NEA Translation Fellowship. She also serves as an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review and writes essays on European Literature for various literary journals and newspapers.