Who is Timo Berger? The German poet who fell in love with Argentine literature.

The poet and translator Timo Berger (Stuttgart, 1974) writes in German and Spanish , but his connection to the literature of the Río de la Plata is more than a matter of language. “In 1999, I left Argentina and thought it was a final goodbye,” he says now. “There were no social media or WhatsApp. Translating was my way of not wasting that year , of staying in touch with the language and the people .”

Since 2016, the MALBA Writers' Residency ( REM ) has hosted authors such as Lina Meruane, Selva Almada, Carlos Fonseca, Ariana Harwicz, and Verónica Gerber Bicecci, among others. During July and August 2025, the program adds this poet and cultural manager to its schedule, who becomes the twenty-fifth resident of this initiative dedicated to fostering literary crossovers, writing in transit, and urban exploration.

Based in Buenos Aires since July, the author is working on Línea de horizonte (Horizon Line), a collection of short stories that will be published in 2026. The material comes from an extensive trip through different Argentine cities: Buenos Aires, Rosario, Mendoza, Bahía Blanca, Córdoba, Santa Fe, Neuquén, and Bariloche . From that journey—with notebooks, analog photos, loose notes, and audio recordings along the way—arose the need to narrate what I saw, heard, and shared. “Writing isn't just about sitting at a table. It's about walking, taking notes of what someone says on the street, looking at a ruined house, listening to a bus,” he says.

What strikes him about Buenos Aires is that "they interview you all the time . What team do you support? Do you have children? Are you Catholic?" he recalls with a laugh. "That's also literature: being forced to tell your story," adds Fabián Casas, who interviewed him in the Malba library during his residency. In an intimate and convivial atmosphere, the two poets spoke in front of the audience about language, reading, and what it means to live in translation.

Even before his first arrival in Argentina, Berger was preparing for an unfamiliar scene. Like a ping-pong game, Casas and Berger recount the anecdote: “ I decided to have a strategy when he asked me which team I support: to say I was an Independiente fan . Not an Independiente fan, but rather that I didn't support any team. At that time, I didn't even speak Spanish well; I spoke poorly, very poorly.”

It wasn't a plan. The first time she came to Argentina, it was a coincidence . She was about to do a university exchange program in Mérida, Venezuela, but in the cafeteria at the University of Tübingen, she ran into a colleague who told her she was going to apply for a scholarship in Argentina. Berger asked her to bring her the paperwork as well. "And that's what happened," she says, still in amazement.

“I had everything ready to go to the Andes, with a ticket and a signed scholarship. There was even another agreement with Santiago, Chile, but my Spanish teacher refused to sign my letter of recommendation. He told me that if I went to Chile, I would return with broken Spanish .”

When she landed in Buenos Aires, she didn't know anyone . Two of her classmates—whom she initially thought were Spanish—turned out to be Argentinian. One was from San Isidro, the other from Misiones. "They told me, 'Call my mom.' I arrived and they were waiting for me in Mercedes, with signs that said, 'Timo, Timo.' It was a family from Misiones with five children, and they were eating corn," she laughs.

“Right when I decided I was coming, Argentinians started showing up from everywhere . There were people coming out of every corner. It was crazy.” As soon as he arrived, he enrolled at the university and stayed with a family. He still didn't understand much of anything. “The one from San Isidro told me that when I was settled in, I should call her for a coffee. The other one told me not to worry, that she'd send her nephew to pick me up at the station. And there was the family with the sign, with the corn.”

That improvised, hospitable, and chaotic welcome left its mark on him. And his current residence reconnects him with that first time. " I like being in the heart of the city . The ideal residence is one that lets you write, but also wander, get lost, wander."

Timo Berger doesn't just write: he also translates. And he doesn't consider it a technical task, but rather a way of being. “Translating isn't transferring words from one language to another. It's like an ovenbird making its nest in a lamppost. That's literature too. That's Argentina too.” That experience was, from the beginning, a way of not letting go. “One day, a poet friend asked me what I was going to do to avoid losing everything I'd experienced. He looked at me, went to his library, and gave me a book: 'Translate it,' he said. And I started translating to stay .”

Even before his first trip to the south, Berger was already forcing words like someone opening a door . “I was a huge fan of Onetti. I read all the texts available in German, but several novels hadn't been translated. I got them in Paris in French; I didn't understand a thing, but I started translating them so I could read them. I didn't get past the third page, but the impulse was there.” Since then, he has translated the works of Fabián Casas, Sergio Raimondi, Edgardo Cozarinsky, Pola Oloixarac, and Laura Erber, among others, into German.

That need to translate was never an academic decision. It was a way of maintaining the connection, of not letting what I'd experienced be erased . “At that time, there were no social media, no Zoom, nothing. There wasn't that daily connection with your country or your people. Calling was very expensive. A letter took weeks. Translating was the way I found to stay in touch. With the language. With friends. With ideas.”

During her residency, Berger will also participate in two activities open to the public . The first, on Wednesday, August 14, will be a class titled "The Real Street: Personal Topographies in Contemporary Literature," in the museum's library. The second, on Thursday, August 21, will be a public reading at Ampersand Publishing , where she will share an unpublished text written during her residency with a local guest author. Admission is subject to advance registration.

He defines his reading style with a smile. “ I read like a nineties poet. That's how it came out. I've learned well how the poets of that era read.” He adds: “After a somewhat shouty performance reading, I lowered my tone. Everyone fell silent. I could read. That was the most interesting thing.” Berger, who in the 2000s was part of the Exit to the Sea poetry movement and has directed the Latinale festival in Berlin since 2006, is familiar with both the theatricality of verse and its flip side: murmur. “In the nineties, there was everything: shouters in the Plaza de los Perros, people who read softly as if from an electric shock. But they all left something behind. That mix left its mark on me,” the poet shares.

In those years, poetry was also a form of fleeting friendship. “Best friend for one night, and then you never saw him again. That's how it was. We were all a little lonely. Monologuing with each other, but without commitment,” he recalls.

Berlin, where he currently lives, also comes up in the conversation. “ It's like the capital of lonely people. People who are deeply committed to art, but not to the social fabric. Buenos Aires is the opposite: there's a warmth, a presence. In Berlin, being solitary is a way of life. Art like everything else, but without the commitment to reproduction, to the bond.”

The REM welcomes him as one of its own. It's not unusual: his Spanish has a porteño accent, but also a hint of travel. As if by saying "boludo" he also means "friend. " "Boludo can be an insult, but also an affection. I like it that way, double," Berger and his friend, Casas, who said he cries when he says goodbye to him, analyze . And as if literature weren't thought of so much as a profession, but rather as a way of being, Berger concluded: "A poet is someone who stays with what happens. I came to stay for a while."