Readings, discussions, residency
22 Mar-18 Apr 09
Admission free
The young author Alina Bronsky is the 4th recipient of the
Munk-Goethe Writers Residency, which aims to foster
German-Canadian exchange on European migration topics. Alina
Bronsky, born 1978 in Iekaterinburg/Russia, grew up on the Asian
side of the Ural Mountains as well as in Marburg and Darmstadt.
After dropping out of her medical studies, she worked as a
copywriter and journalist. "Scherbenpark" is her first literary
publication, released in August 2008.
In cooperation, the Goethe-Institut Toronto and the Munk Centre
for International Studies at the University of Toronto created
the Munk-Goethe Writers Residency as a basis for the long-term
collaboration of Canadian, German and international artists,
journalists and academics. In 2006 Lena Gorelik has been the
residency, 2007 the journalist Dr. Thomas Medicus has been in
Canada and in 2008 the author Jagoda Marinić. The residencies
resulted in countless texts, new research interests, future
conference ideas, new books and new international artistic and
academic friendships.
Alina Bronsky, who took part in the Ingeborg Bachmann
Competition 2008, will be involved in readings, presentations
and discussions with students and Canadian audiences as well as
in informal meetings. She will read in English and German,
amongst others in Waterloo, London and at Munk Centre Toronto.
Her debut "Scherbenpark" is about 17-year-old Sascha who came
from Moscow to Germany and lives with her younger brother and
sister in the "Park of Fragments" – a ghetto of high-rise
buildings ruled by its own laws which she breaks with fierce
determination. She visits the Catholic elite high school, which
accepted Sascha because of her giftedness as well as her
precarious living conditions. Sascha is a commuter between two
worlds and not at home in either of them but sharp-tongued and
precocious enough to stand her ground – and to take the reader
with her on a constantly accelerating journey.
What the critics are saying:
"Most exciting newcomer of the season." (Spiegel)
"Electrifying debut" (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
"A literature that develops an incredible narrative flow... the
text really inspired me." (Ijoma Mangold, member of jury at
Ingeborg Bachmann Competition Klagenfurt 2008)
"You cannot escape the maelstrom of this book. Sascha’s
development for all of the easy language is very authentic."
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Event schedule
1 April 09, 2-4 pm:
Reading & Discussion at the Munk Centre, Room 208N
2 April 09, 1.30pm:
Reading & Discussion at the University of Western Ontario,
University College Room 224a
6 April 09, 12.30-2.30pm:
Reading & Discusison (in English & German) at the Canadian
Centre for German and European Studies, York University, Lounge
Room of the Department of Languages, Literatures and
Linguistics, 5th floor of the South Ross Building
8 April 09, 2.30pm-4.30pm,
University of Waterloo, Tatham Centre 2218
