Fergal Lenehan

The far-right’s leading position in Austria illustrates the global trend also emerging in Germany and could shed light on possible European futures.

Streaming services are giving viewers a new opportunity to enjoy films that flopped at the box office. Some of them lost tens of millions of dollars, others were in bad taste while more were targets of rushed judgements. They are now being hailed as flip flops.

Over the years, many Irish musicians have taken the road to Germany to establish their careers. Most don’t make it. One of those who has is now a national rock and reality TV superstar and mentor to other Irish music hopefuls.

The name Hilma af Klint doesn’t trip off the tongue, yet an exhibition of her work broke all attendance records at New York’s Guggenheim Museum and she might have been the very first abstract painter. So, who is Hilma?

Fergal Lenehan lives and works in the eastern German states of Thuringia and Saxony where the far right has made its first significant political gains. He assesses what the AfD win will mean for the rest of Germany and Europe.

Ireland’s most successful filmmaker, Neil Jordan is one of the few writers who has moved from novels to scripting his own film, including the Oscar-winning Crying Game. From his home in Spain, he tells Fergal Lenehan he has now turned his hand to science fiction.

The good performance of the German team so far has echoes of the 2006 World Cup. There are good football reasons for this, but it has yet to translate into a wider positive national feeling.

Fergal Lenehan looks at the great anti-imperialist novel, the “only Dutch novel of real-world significance” with influence beyond the reality of the written word.

The Prague-born novelist and short story writer has long been a source of fascination and study throughout the world. First editions of his books are fetching enormous sums and experts return to his work again and again to gain a better understanding.

The Zone of Interest's Oscar win put the spotlight on Germany's difficult relationship with its past, but this is just one of many films exploring ordinary Nazi complicity across the continent. In its own way, Ireland is next, writes Fergal Lenehan in Leipzig.