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LESUNG | LITERATUR
Dmitry Glukhovsky in Literaturehouse Zurich | Ono Bern
Presenter: Conny Brügger (SFR) | Reading: Thomas Douglas
Dmitry Glukhovsky is one of the best-known younger authors in Russia, and one of his most controversial intellectuals. He achieved international fame through his science fiction trilogy "Metro", which was translated into 35 countries. The new novel "Text" (Europa Verlag 2018, from the Russian by Franziska Zwerg) is Glukhovsky's first realistic novel, but like his earlier texts it also criticizes today's Russia: the young Ilya returns to his hometown in 2016 after seven years in prison back near Moscow. Not only did he fall victim to arbitrary police violence and a corrupt investigator, he also lost everything after seven years. His mother has just passed away, their apartment has been robbed, his girlfriend doesn't want to see him anymore, not even the funeral can pay for Ilya. Then Ilya, who really only wanted his life back, makes a serious mistake. He has to go into hiding and a dead man's smartphone now determines his life. His hectic flight full of self-doubt and driven by text messages and the constraints of foreign identity leads him across Moscow.