feeLit 2026: Katerina Poladjan – Goldstrand

In the organizer's words:

From July 2 to 5, feeLit - International Literature Festival Heidelberg and its authors will be making a guest appearance at halle02 for the second time. Our festival venue is all about books and writing. This year, feeLit presents national and international literary stars and brings authors together with their audience.

feeLit 2026: Katerina Poladjan - Goldstrand

Language: German

Katerina Poladjan is considered a "master of disguised, allusive storytelling" (DLF). For feeLit. she reads from her new novel "Goldstrand", for which she was awarded the 2026 Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the fiction category this spring:

A dilapidated villa in Rome, an enigmatic dottoressa, a man on a couch tells a story about his life: In her new novel, Katerina Poladjan combines fragments of old Europe to create a cheerful, melancholy picture of the present.

In the 1950s, a vacation resort is being built on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast: Goldstrand, planned as a place in the sun for everyone. Eli is conceived on the building site. Sixty years later, he has long since celebrated his greatest successes as a film director and is lying on his dottoressa's couch in Rome. He speculates and fantasizes about his family history, which spans an entire century and across the European continent, from Odessa to Constantinople and Varna in Bulgaria to Rome.

Katerina Poladjan, born in Moscow in 1971, grew up in Rome and Vienna and lives in Berlin. She studied Applied Cultural Studies and Performing Arts and worked for many years as an actress in film and theater, including at the Schaubühne Berlin and the Schauspielhaus Hamburg. In addition to theater texts and essays, she writes novels; since her debut "In einer Nacht, woanders", her works have received numerous awards.

"A cut in time that opens up horizons of fantasy and fear. [...] great cinema." Paul Jandl, NZZ, August 27, 2025

"Katerina Poladjan masterfully demonstrates how a biography emerges from self-questioning and invention, from fabulation and the circumvention of pain." Jury Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair

Good to know

• Only cashless payment (EC card, credit card, contactless) is possible at our venue: halle02.de/cashless
• Seated event, free choice of seats
• Local organizer: FeeLit - International Literature Festival Heidelberg