The writer Lyudmila Ulitzkaja, currently living in exile in Berlin, is presenting her new book in the Munich Literature House – and with it reflections on the present as well as memories.
“God smiles when he hears about our plans.” The Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitzkaja quotes this proverb in the foreword of her new book. She relates it to her hope of staying in Moscow for the rest of her life. And the fate that drove her into exile in Germany – to Berlin, for her one of “the quietest, most pleasant and most livable cities in Europe”; an interesting judgment for German readers used to Berlin bashing.
The small book “Don’t forget the memory” (Hanser) is interesting in many respects. In it, the eminent Russian writer, who recently turned 80, reflects not only on her life, from childhood to body. She also reflects with the usual clear-sightedness on her own search for freedom, the development of Russian society as a whole and, of course, the war that Putin has been waging in Ukraine for the past year.
As a tireless and often sleepless observer of world events, she asks herself many questions and struggles for answers. So the evening with Ulitzkaja in the House of Literature promises to be exciting, and one wishes her, who “only has one more hope and one dream”, that they may come true: “I would like to see the end of this war madness and return to Moscow, in my apartment, in the familiar and beloved world.”
Ljudmila Ulitzkaja, reading, Wednesday, March 22, 7 p.m., Literaturhaus, Salvatorplatz 1, literaturhaus-muenchen.de