BRENNPUNKT UKRAINE I: TANJA MALJURTSCHUK & MARTIN POLLACK

Tanja Maljurtschuk grew up in the Ukraine and worked as a TV journalist in Kiev. Her second novel, «Biography of a chance wonder» was published in 2013, a novel marked by her special style of comedy and unique way with words. The protagonist Lena lives in a world marked by violence and arbitrariness, yet the heroine puts up a fight, equipped only with her wit, stubbornness and a healthy dose of audacity. Maljurtschuk currently lives in Vienna and writes opinion columns on political issues regularly.

The award winning author, translator and reporter Martin Pollack also lives in Vienna, though he spends much of his time on the road in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. For Pollack, it’s always been rather single events and personal encounters that help to shed light on grander scale developments and help to better understand the larger scheme of things. Accordingly, he ably constructs multifarious panoramas of transient states in his texts. His book «Contaminated landscape» deals with the quickly forgotten graves and volatile history of Eastern Europe.

The discussion takes place in German.