In the organizer's words:

"A language is not a language if it holds no secrets," writes Alhierd Bacharevič. What constitutes a language, what are its limits - and what magical and poetic means can be used to expand them? Can it give hope, healing, carry us in moments of powerlessness, inspire activism? In his novel Europa's Dogs, Bacharevič sketches a future, fragmented Europe - a dystopian fable and meditation on the erosion of freedom and the ability of language to resist tyranny.

In his prose miniatures, the Egyptian writer Haytham El-Wardany rethinks sleep as a "strange language". The Book of Sleep, written in the face of the Arab Spring, is a poetic-philosophical manifesto for vulnerability: sleep appears as a daily surrender to the unknown. In the darkness, hope ripens "like a fruit" - language becomes an act of awakening.

In the work of US poet Joyelle McSweeney, this awakening becomes an uprising against death and decay. Her volume Toxicon and Arachne unfolds a toxically glowing, mutating world of images that revolves around destruction and birth. With the ruins of romantic poetry, with John Keats in the climate devastation, she searches for germinal spaces for new life.

Moderation: Rike Scheffler
The German translations will be read by Sandra Hetzl, Daniela Seel and Uljana Wolf.
The event will be held in German and English with simultaneous interpretation (German ↔ English).
In cooperation with the Cologne Adult Education Center.

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Tickets are available in advance here on the website and at the Box Office.