Saša Stanišić & Kristine Bilkau - Harbour Front Literaturfestival

A book about coming home—and about the places that know more about us than we do ourselves.

Two of the most interesting voices in contemporary German-language literature come together for the first time: Saša Stanišić and Kristine Bilkau will present a joint evening at the Harbour Front Literature Festival—an exclusive event developed specifically for Hamburg.

The event emerged as a Harbor Front creation and from a carte blanche given to Saša Stanišić: Who would he like to have join him for an evening together? His answer came quickly: Kristine Bilkau. And Bilkau agreed immediately.

The two have never worked together in person before. This makes the anticipation all the greater for an encounter that brings two distinct literary voices into a special dialogue: on the one hand, an author who writes about origin and memory with great narrative flair and plays with the possibilities of storytelling; and an author who, with quiet precision, brings familial, social, and emotional tensions to light.

Under the overarching theme of “Places,” the two embark on a journey to their literary and biographical settings. For Stanišić and Bilkau, places are more than just atmospheric backdrops. They tell stories of their own and have a profound influence on people’s lives, their social backgrounds, their life paths, and their futures.

The journey takes us to Bilkau’s North, where we encounter bodies of water and close-knit neighborhoods; to the big city and the outdoor pool in light drizzle; and to Stanišić’s Yugoslavia, Heidelberg, the Uckermark, and summer camps.

In doing so, the two not only shed light on their literary presence but also discuss the concrete political and social dimensions of place and sense of belonging. What social issues are inextricably linked to our living environment? How do we live, and what—especially for younger generations—does the future hold in terms of the realities of place?

Look forward to a multifaceted evening full of literary and personal discoveries—an event that will take place in this form only once!

Saša Stanišić, born in Višegrad in 1978, has lived in Germany since 1992. His novel *Herkunft* was awarded the German Book Prize in 2019.

Kristine Bilkau lives in Hamburg as a writer. In 2025, she received the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the fiction category for her novel *Halbinsel*.