Speech 4: Michal Hvorecký and Serhij Zhadan
Michal Hvorecký (left) and Serhij Zhadan (right) both reached puberty around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a result their characters experienced the social transformations of that period firsthand. Their novels and prose set in this newly formed Europe are about young people who, in times of exploding turbo capitalism, sell their bodies as callboys to female managers from the West (Hvorecký, Eskorta), or stagger through upside-down cities somewhere between lust and porn addiction (Hvorecký, Plush), or who return from the Chechnian war and open the first gay club in their hometowns, or make a living by trading organs along the EU’s external borders (Zhadan, Anthem of Democratic Youth).
In their speeches the two young authors, widely acclaimed by critics, give an insight into the diverse elements that come together to form modern-day biographies in Bratislava and Kharkiv.
Michal Hvorecký, born in 1976 in Bratislava, lives and works in the city as an author and journalist. He has won several literary prizes.
Serhij Zhadan, born in 1974 in the region of Luhansk/eastern Ukraine, did his PhD on Ukrainian Futurism. Since 1991 he has been one of the central figures on the emerging scene in Kharkiv.
Speech at the Akademietheater, 15 February 2010
Here you can listen to the lecture:
Part 1:
Part 2:
