Literature & Solidarity. Reading with Ewa Maria Slaska and Utz Rachowski

In conversation with Doris Liebermann, writer Ewa Maria Slaska and author Utz Rachowski talk about their lives, writing in exile and literature as a place of refuge.
Biographies

Ewa Maria Slaska, born in Sopot in 1949, is a writer, journalist and translator. She has worked for the Solidarność trade union since 1980, even after it was banned in 1982, which resulted in political persecution. Her first novel "Portrait with Amethyst" was published on December 12, 1981, one day before a state of war was declared in Poland. in 1985, she emigrated with her husband and son to West Berlin, where she worked as a television journalist and project manager. From her exile, she supported the democratic opposition in Poland. in 1994, Slaska founded the German-Polish literary association "WIR" and is still committed to bilateral understanding today.

Utz Rachowski, born in Plauen in 1954 and raised in Reichenbach/Vogtland, was arrested in 1979 for "anti-state agitation" and "dissemination of inflammatory literature" and later expatriated to West Berlin. He was arrested for distributing texts by Reiner Kunze, Jürgen Fuchs and Wolf Biermann, but above all for five of his own poems. From West Berlin, Rachowski supported the Polish opposition, including traveling to Poland and bringing back texts by persecuted authors to publish them in the West. The confrontation with the dictatorship, persecution, betrayal and exile also became the subject matter of his own writing.Translated with DeepL

Meeting point: Visitor Center, Bernauer Straße 119, 13355 Berlin

Next date:

• Date Monday, 28/October/2024 18:30 bis 20:30
• Venue Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer
• Address Bernauer Straße 111, 13355 Berlin-Wedding