Sylvie Kandé (born 1957 in Paris) is a French poet, who teaches African history in the USA. The past is explored in her poetic work in a variety of ways. She delves into topics such as the transatlantic slave trade or recalls the overlooked history of Senegalese units that were decimated in the service of the French army during both World Wars.

In her multi-award-winning long poem La Quête infinite de l’autre rive (The Neverending Quest for the Other Shore, translated into German as Die unendliche Suche nach dem anderen Ufer, Matthes & Seitz 2021), Kandé first returns to the 14th century and describes the transatlantic crossing of the Malian ruler Abubakari II in several variations. Poetry becomes a site for the reimagination of history, both historical and visionary. These are polyphonic, richly orchestrated texts that have been mentioned in the same breath as Saint-John Perse and Derek Walcott’s Homeric work Omeros. In the concluding section of this neo-epic narrative, history is juxtaposed with contemporary stories of flight and migration. Kandé suggests, “the epic is not only a genre, it is first and foremost the expression of an imaginative mind.”

Ukrainian poet Marianna Kiyanovska (born 1973 in Nesterov, now Zhovka, Oblast Lviv) writes about the war crimes committed by the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War in her poetry collection The Voices of Babyn Yar (translated into German as Babyn Jar. Stimmen by Claudie Dathe, Suhrkamp Verlag 2024).

Babyn Yar is a ravine near Kyiv, where more than 33,000 Jews were killed within two days in September 1941. Forming a cycle, 67 poems bring to life voices from the past in fiction, victims and witnesses speak to the reader with the utmost immediacy. Already considered one of the most important works of contemporary Ukrainian literature, the book has given rise to much debate: Can one speak on behalf of witnesses without having been a witness? Poet Serhiy Zhadan writes that this book is about the mechanisms that allow for the voice of the others, the voice of the many, to resound through the poet and her lines.

In 2019, the Mexican poet and literary scholar Sara Uribe (born 1978 in Querétaro) gained international recognition for her book Antígona González (translated into German by Chris Michalski, hochroth Verlag 2022). In these texts, the mythical figure of Antigone, who defies all odds to bury her brother Polyneices after his violent death serves as a template. She takes on a modern guise in Uribe’s work with a variety of possible interpretations. The current backstory of these texts is the disappearance of countless people in Mexico without a trace and the persistent silence of official sources. The beginning of the book, “Instructions for Counting the Dead,” formulates an imperative for moral action: “preserve the memory of those who have died.” Writing becomes an act of naming of what is no longer there, and poetry becomes a place where the dead can be mourned. Everyone who searches is Antigone, every dead person who hasn’t been accounted for is Polyneices.

In the texts of the Romanian poet Miruna Vlada (born 1986 in Bucharest), voices join to form a choir. In her collection Bosnia. Partaj, which was published in 2014 and translated into German as Bosnien. Gütertrennung by Ernest Wichner, these voices are those of the women who fell victim to the Civil Wars in former Yugoslavia. For Vlada, who see Bosnia as a kind of adopted country, the work is both poetry and history. These are messages from the “broken heart of Europe,” they speak of the massacres in Foča and Tuzla while being aware of the ubiquity of the repressed: “with every caress, death passes us by.” These texts are simultaneously brutal and tender. They’re always direct and are aggressive at times, such as when the actress Angeline Jolie, who with the best of intentions made a feature film in 2011 about the Bosnian War is addressed: “oh, you, dear Lara Croft, mother of my grieving nation, adopt me, give me a few kilos of cat food from the relief supplies.”

Moderation: Irina Bondas

The event will be interpreted into English and German. With the kind support of ECHOO Konferenzdolmetschen

Project management: Timo Berger