Fergal Lenehan

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.

Germans have taken to the streets in mass protests against the far-right AfD party. There is now a growing need for a widespread pro-democracy coalition throughout Europe including Ireland, Fergal Lenehan writes from Leipzig.

Fergal Lenehan explores how a new exhibition in Berlin charts the time Norwegian painter Edvard Munch spent in Germany and looks at the new followings Norwegian literature and screen cultures are enjoying across Europe.

The great tradition of settling down on Christmas night to watch the family movie is still very much alive in Germany. But there’s no place for The Towering Inferno in Fergal Lenehan’s list of what Germans watch at this time of year.