Lena Gorelik »Alle meine Mütter«

March 20, 2026 / 6 p.m. / Literature Café

LEIPZIG READS

"Mothers leave their mark on us, even if we don't want them to, they nestle in our heads and hearts, whisper to us, scold us, comfort us, even after they have passed away, even if we didn't know them or barely knew them. We take our steps towards what we have become thanks to or despite our mothers. We carry them with us forever," writes Lena Gorelik.

"All My Mothers" tells of a special, often lifelong complex relationship and also of the mothers we try to be ourselves. How we sometimes fail, doubt, stumble. The fears that accompany us. What binds us and shapes us, what holds us back. What it means to be an unwanted mother or not to be a mother, to accept a child, to lose a child or not to be able to let go.

Deepest love, doubt, very different forms of happiness - the whole cosmos of human relationships comes to light in the first bond of our lives. This book is for everyone. (Rowohlt 2026)

Lena Gorelik, born in St. Petersburg in 1981, came to Germany with her parents in 1992. Her novel "Hochzeit in Jerusalem" (2007) was nominated for the German Book Prize, "Mehr Schwarz als Lila" (2017) for the German Youth Literature Prize. Her novel "Wer wir sind" was published in 2021 and received rave reviews. Lena Gorelik regularly writes essays on social issues, including for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit. In 2024, she was awarded the Heinrich Mann Prize for Essay Writing.

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