International Literary Festival Odessa 2021: Programme 24-26 September

9.00 – 10.30
Location: TBA
Languages: German, Ukrainian
BETTINA WILPERT GERMANY online
"Nothing that happens to us"

In her debut novel, honored by the ZDF Aspekte Literature Prize, the author explores how rape affects victims, criminals, and the environment, and how society responds to sexual violence. Jonas rapes Anna at a student party. He denies it; it’s his word against hers. Finally, Anna reports Jonas to the police. Their circle of friends is divided and doubt whether either can be trusted.

11.00 – 12.30
Location: House of scientists
Languages: Ukrainian, German
JUDITH HERMANN GERMANY online
"At Home"

In her novel, nominated for the 2021 Leipzig Book Fair Prize, Judith Hermann tells of the awakening of a woman who leaves the city and her husband and moves to the sea. She gradually develops the strength to fight back, and transforms against the background of the coastal landscape: An oldworld is lost, a new one emerges.
"At Home", Hermann has written a convincing novel, her most masterful and best book since her début." ("Der Tagesspiegel").

13.00 – 14.00
Location: House of Scientists
Languages: English, Ukrainian
SOFI OKSANEN FINNLAND online
"Dog park"

In her gripping novel, the award-winning author tells a story set at the interface between East and West – between Helsinki today and Ukraine in theyears of independence. Realism and psychological thriller intersect in this text about the commercialization of the female body that shows the world of rich European women who realize their desire to have children at the expense of poorer women from the East and the developing world.

14.00 -15.00
Location: House of Scientists
Languages: German, Ukrainian
CHRISTIAN UETZ SWITZERLAND
"The naked word"

The narrator, "alias Georg Niemann", intertwines his intimate book of reflections with a description of his relationship with Liv. The rules of their love include unconditional trust and the unconditional freedom to live sensual pleasure without restriction. Throughout the development of their relationship, Georg writes his thoughts on Eros, which are radically personal and politically formulated and postulate a new male self- image thatseeks to overcome the gap between the sexes in language.

16.00 – 17.30
Location: House of Scientists
Language: Ukrainian
YURI ANDRUKHOVYCH UKRAINE
"Radio Night"

The idea for his novel occurred to Yuri Andrukhovych several years ago: When asked what he would do if he no longer wrote, he responded that he would play his favorite music at night on his own radio station. His "acoustic novel" (Volodymyr Yermolenko) is set in Eastern and Central Europe and is about a clever swindler who pits himself against the dictators. Adventure is interwoven with fantasy, and David Bowie meets traveling musicians from medieval times.

18.30 – 20.00
Location: Odesa Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre V. Vasylko
Languages: Ukrainian, German
LUKAS BÄRFUSS SWITZERLAND
"The sexual neuroses of our parents"
Performative reading

The play, which premiered in 2003 and has been staged in many theaters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and translated into 12 languages to date, will be presented in fragments as a cooperation between the Literature Festival and the Odesa Drama Theater. It is about young Dora, who discovers her hunger for life and her sexuality after dispensing with psychotropic drugs, thus provoking the hypocritical people who surround her.

21.00 – 23.00
Location: House of Scientists
Language: Ukrainian
TANIA MALIARCHUK UKRAINE, BORIS KHERSONKY UKRAINE, LYUDMILA KHERSONKA UKRAINE

Poetry Night

21.00 – 22.00
TANIA MALIARTCHUK UKRAINE
online
"God still thanks us for such sins"

The writer and winner of the 2018 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize presents her first collection of poetry in free verse, complemented by self-made collages. Here, she opens a private and poetic space and lays her feelings bare. Above all, the experience of love as the most refined form of violence is described from a female perspective.

22.00. – 23.00
Languages: Ukrainian, Russian
LYUDMILA KHERSONSKA UKRAINE, BORIS KHERSONSKY UKRAINE

Lyudmyla Khersonska, whose poems have been translated into German and English and successfully presented in Kyiv, Moscow, Lviv, Munich, New York, and Marburg as well as published in various magazines, reads in Russian from her fourth collection, "Cross the Moat". The texts are primarily about Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Boris Khersonsky frequently addresses the ongoing complex military situation in eastern Ukraine in his poems. In honor of his 70th birthday,the books presented here – "Raspechatka" and "Rozdrukіvka" (tr: Printout) – are combined with cycles of poems from the past two decades in Russian and Ukrainian, with a reference to the Soviet era, when his texts were only available as samizdat.

13.30 – 15.00
Location: House of Scientists
Languages: German, Ukrainian
LUKAS BÄRFUSS SWITZERLAND
"Stendhal und Ovid"

The playwright, novelist, and essayist is a thinker of European stature, whether on literary, historical, or political topics. In his contemplation of Ovid, he discovers how the art of love as well as the art of war are viewed from the perspective of conquest. In Stendhal’s work "The Life of Henry Brulard", hereveals the French author’s penchant for classifying things. Bärfuss always has the big picture in mind and avoids rash answers.

15.00 – 16.30
Location: House of Scientists
Languages: Ukrainian, German
JONAS LÃœSCHER SWITZERLAND
"Barbarian spring"

The award-winning novella tells of a Swiss factory heir who stumbles upon an English wedding party while at a luxury hotel in the middle of the Tunisian desert. The sudden financial crisis hits him hard because his products are manufactured in Tunisia. Complex social problems that have emerged from globalization are addressed; the text is a "cleverly grotesque fable about a generation that risks
everything by attracting money." ("Deutschlandfunk").

16.30 – 17.30
Location: House of Scientists
Languages: Ukrainian, German
VALERIY PUZIK UKRAINE
"I saw him alive, dead then alive again"

In his short prose, Puzik tells of childhood, feelings, and relationships – and of war in Donbass. The texts reveal the author’s mastery of a nearly cinematographic portrayal of situations. "Puzik’s stories not only draw the reader’s attention to details and the history of the young nation, its people,and their changing lives, but also tell of the search for inner strength and the ability to see things as they are". ("Krytyka").

18.00 – 19.00
Location: House of scientists
Language: Ukrainian
DMYTRO ZHURAWEL UKRAINE, HLIB KUCHMA UKRAINE, VALERIY PUZIK UKRAINE, NADIA HLUSCHKOWA
Ukraine New Generation

Since the futurism of 1910, Odesa has been known as a city of young and experimental art and poetry. Today, along with publications in almanacs and online literature portals, it is above all the new performative forms of poetry presentation like poetry battles and poetic songs that characterize the young scene.

19.30 – 21.00
Location: House of scientists
Languages: English, Portuguese, Berlarusian, Ukrainian
FOREST GANDER USA online, ANGELICA FREITAS BRASILIEN online, VOLHA HAPEYEVA BELARUS online, DMITROLAZUTKIN UKRAINE

Poetry Night II

21.30 – 23.00
Location: House of scientists
Language: Ukrainian
MARYANA SAWKA,SERHIY OSOKA UKRAINE
"Poems of the Night"

The "Poems of the Night" project was created after an experiment on Facebook. During the first months of quarantine in 2020, Mariana Savka and Serhiy Osoka wrote poetic letters to each other in the evenings and nights. A man and a woman, both in solitude and isolation. The texts not only recall the situation last year, but also show how social we are as beings and how the world has changed.

12.00 – 13.30
Location : House of Scientists
Language: Ukrainian
OLENA BRAYCHENKO UKRAINE
"UKRAINE. Food & History"

Olena Braichenko researches the history of Ukrainian gastronomy and is the founder of the project yizhakultura.com. She introduces her newest book on the past and present of Ukrainian cuisine, presenting above all recipes for dishes that anyone can easily replicate – a calling card for Ukraine.The author pays special attention to the diplomatic aspect of Ukrainian food.

13.30 – 15.00
Location: House of Scientists
Language: Russian
SERGEI LEBEDEV RUSSIA online
"Untraceable"

The author’s latest novel was inspired by Russia’s use of deadly poisons against former agents and critics of the regime. It centers on a chemist whohas devoted his life to developing a completely lethal substance that leaves no trace. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he flees to the West andleads a life under a new identity until the past catches up with him

15.00 – 16.30
Location: House of Scientists
Language: Russian
LYUDMILA ULITSKAYA RUSSIA
"A plague in the city"

The 2020 Siegfried Lenz Prize-winning author has published a new edition of a text from 1978 following the coronavirus pandemic. Her grotesque text, which address the terror inflicted by the secret police under Stalin, shows a paralyzed society in the face of a lung disease that spreads following an accident in a research lab.
"The errant interaction of the plague imposed by ›nature‹ at times of political plague is the real punch line of
Ulitskaya’s book." ["NZZ"]

16.30 – 18.00
Location: House of Scientists
Languages: Russian, Ukrainian
JULIA WERBA UKRAINE
"Odesa Saga"

In order to marry Ivan Bezzub, Fira, the daughter of the rabbi of Nikopol, must be baptized. Since a continued stay in Nikopol would put their lives indanger, the young couple decamps to Odesa. Even if Ivan promises his young bride a better life than the one on a Moldavanka farm, four generations of Bezzubs have spent their lives here in the shadow of illustrious neighbors, historic changes,
scandals, and great tragedies

19.00 – 21.00
Location: Odesa Academic Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre V. Vasylko
Language: Ukrainian
MARIUS VON MAYENBURG GERMANY
"The ugly one"

An engineer for electrical fuse systems makes a sad discovery: He is unspeakably ugly. This is why he is not allowed to attend the convention to present his latest invention. A surgical intervention is supposed to remedy the situation. With his new ideal face, he finds many imitators, in whom he ishenceforth reflected, like clones. The bitter social satire about physical alienation is presented in cooperation with the V. Vasylko Odesa Drama Theater.