Discussion forum "Crisis and solidarity in Europe today: what can literature do?" (Crisis and Solidarity in Contemporary Europe: What can a Literature do?) with the participation of Julia Fiedorczuk (Poland), Sabrina Janesch (Germany), Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Iceland) and Jaryna Chornohuz (Ukraine). The event will be moderated by Eglė Murauskaitė, a senior researcher and security expert at the University of Maryland (USA).

JULIA FIEDORCZUK  (b. 1975) is a Polish novelist, poet, translator and researcher. Born in Warsaw, she studied at the University of Warsaw, where she also teaches American literature. Her poetry collection Psalms (2018) won the Wisława Szymborska Prize. She has published seven books of prose, most notably the novel Pod słońcem (2020), translated into Lithuanian in 2022 (translated by Kazys Uscila). It is a family saga spanning the entire 20th century. The Polish and Belarusian (Ruthenian) communities living in the shelter of the Polesie Forest are transformed by historical upheavals, but their connection to their environment and to each other is not severed. The characters of this poetic novel are not only people with dramatic fates, but also nature - the river, the forest, the birds. 

 

SABRINA JANESCH (born 1985) is a German writer. She studied creative writing, journalism and philology in Germany and Poland. She has published five critically and critically acclaimed books of prose. Janesch's debut novel, Katzenberg Mountains (Katzenberg, 2010), tells the story of a young woman who, after the death of her grandfather, travels to Lower Silesia in search of her family roots. Her latest novel, Sibir (2023), is also based on the author's family history and the experiences of Russian Germans during the war and after repatriation back to Germany. It is a story about the shadows of the past, about exile and the search for a homeland. 

 

AUÐUR AVA ÓLAFSDÓTTIR (born 1958) is an Icelandic novelist, poet, playwright. She studied Italian literature at the University of Bologna in Italy, history and literature at the University of Iceland, and art history at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Taught art history at the University of Iceland. First novel, The Ascended Ground (Upphækkuð jörð), published in 1998. He became famous after his third novel, Afleggjarinn (2008). It was nominated for the Nordic Council of Ministers' Prize for Literature and won the Canadian Prix des libraires du Quebec (2011). The novel Scars (Ör, 2016) was awarded the Nordic Council of Ministers' Literature Prize and will be published in Lithuanian in 2019 (Lithuanian Writers' Union Publishing House, translated by Rasa Ruseckienė). The theme of the novel is the scars left by everyday life and war in the human soul and the search for a way to survive. The writer's works are characterised by a poetic style, deep subtexts, gentle humour, unexpected and paradoxical endings. Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir also writes lyrics for the Icelandic pop and electronic music band Milkywhale. 

 

JARYNA CHORNOHUZ (b. 1995) is a Ukrainian poet, military medic and explorer. She graduated from Kyiv University in 2019 with a degree in Humanities and a Master's degree in Philosophy. In the same year, she joined the army as a military medic and scout. When Russia invaded Ukraine, she took part in the battles of Popasna, Mariupol and Bakhmut. 

Chornohuz's first book of poetry, Як вигинається воєнне коло (How the Wheel of War Turns), was published in 2020. A second book of poetry, dasein: оборона присутnostі (dasein: defence of presence), was published in 2023. For this book, the author was awarded the Taras Shevchenko National Prize. Her poems have been translated into Lithuanian by Marius Burokas and Jurgita Jasponytė. 

 The event will be held in English. 

The event is presented by the Goethe Institute in Vilnius.