Ukraine writes back: Oksana Zabuzhko and Victoria Belim
Location
Category
Price
discount
Language
When Oksana Zabuzhko was asked by a Western journalist on the phone on 24 February what Putin wanted, she exploded. ‘Are you kidding me?! He has already told you umpteen times what he wants: he wants to eradicate Ukrainians, he wants us to disappear, to cease existing, like Hitler with the Jews. Putin even used the exact same wording, “a final solution to the Ukrainian question”. How much longer are you going to pretend you didn’t hear that?’
Zabuzhko was at that moment in a hotel room in Poland, where she was presenting her new book. She realized that from that moment on she was in involuntary exile, that this would be the longest book tour of her career. Oksana Zabuzhko will be at the Passa Porta Festival to share her story – the story of millions of compatriots. She will be in conversation with Peter Vermeersch, writer and professor of political science, and Ukrainian-American author Victoria Belim.
In The Rooster House, Victoria Belim reports on Ukraine’s troubled history through her own family history. She travelled from the US to the land of her ancestors to look into the disappearance of her great uncle Nikodim in the 1930s. What happened to him in ‘the bloodlands’? Why was so little known about his fate? And why did her grandmother forbid her from disturbing the past? As Ukraine was slowly but surely turning back into a ‘bloodland’, Victoria Belim decided to learn the truth about the country’s past.
Oksana Zabuzhko
about the guests
Oksana Zabuzhko (b. 1960) is among the most widely translated Ukrainian writers and poets. She studied philosophy in Kyiv and obtained a PhD in aesthetics. In the 1990s she was a visiting professor in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Harvard. Her first novel, Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, was published in 1996, her magisterial The Museum of Abandoned Secrets in 2010, and the short story collection Your Ad Could Go Here in 2022.
Victoria Belim was born in Ukraine, grew up in the US and now works in Brussels as a translator of Persian literature and as a journalist for the Financial Times, New York Times Magazine, Elle and Marie Claire, among others. She speaks eighteen languages. The Rooster House is her first book.
Peter Vermeersch (b. 1972) is a writer, Slavist and professor of political science. He has published essays, prose and poetry in De Correspondent and McSweeney’s, among others. Ex: Over een land dat zoek is was nominated for the AKO Literature Prize, the Bob den Uyl Prize, the Gouden Uil and the E. du Perron Prize. In 2016 he received the Literary Award of the Province of West Flanders. His latest book is Aantekeningen bij een moord (2019).
Don't forget daylight saving time. On Sunday, March 26, the time will change from 2:00 to 3:00.
ORG. Passa Porta, Cossee, De Arbeiderspers
picture oksana zabuzhko © Pavlo Botanov
Coming soon at
meet the author : max porter
With each book, Max Porter pushes his boundaries and those of the reader. The presentation of his new novel, Shy, will take things one step further. Get ready for an inimitable performance by Max Porter accompanied by the deep bass of Nicolas Rombouts. After the reading, Ruth Joos will engage in conversation with the author.
Kunst met de K van Kongo – Art Nouveau in Brussel
In de stijlvolle Sint-Gorikshallen stelt de Brusselse historicus Lucas Catherine in avant-première zijn nieuwe boek voor: Art Nouveau. Kunst met de K van Kongo.
A skewed view of Bad Gays
Bad Gays is not only a notorious English-language podcast about history’s evil and complicated queers, it is now also a devilishly good book. The guys from the podcast Scheef Bekeken (A skewed view) will delve into all things unknown and indecent with host Ben Miller. Join us, sit back and listen. It’s complicated.