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A black and white photo of a smiling person with wispy curls. Next to it the book cover of the reading, with the title printed in large letters and torn pieces of paper of a red drawing.
© Heike Steinweg
A black and white photo of a smiling person with wispy curls. Next to it the book cover of the reading, with the title printed in large letters and torn pieces of paper of a red drawing.
© Heike Steinweg

Diasporic Echoes im Avant-Garten

Reading: Sasha Marianna Salzmann "Im Menschen Muss Alles Herrlich Sein" / Concert: Maryna "Newma" Zarubina & Friends

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Saturday

8/13/22

6:30 PM

At 18:30 (Reading in German) »Sasha Marianna Salzmann shines with a brilliant novel« (NZZ). »Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein« is a family story based on the experiences of loss of strong female characters. In it, the four protagonists struggle with their history in search of common ground, love and identity. One of them, Lena was born 50 years ago in an Ukrainian industrial town now occupied by Russian separatists. She grew up in the Soviet Union before emigrating to Germany with a Jewish husband and moving to Jena, where she found no home. Edi is her daughter, lives in Berlin and carries her mother's Soviet heritage on her shoulders. The novel begins without revealing anything about the characters, the narrator, the time or the exact location of the events. The only recognizable coordinates are Plattenbau tristesse, hurt, alienation and a strained mother-daughter relationship. From there, Salzmann connects migration biographies with the rugged search for identity of subsequent generations, drawing a sobering portrait of the late Soviet era and a Germany that does not welcome migrants with open arms. At the same time, they present the emotional relationships of their characters as reflections of the desolate social conditions. What connects the two generations is loss, which Salzman describes pictorially, full of empathy and with great intensity.

Sasha Marianna Salzmann is a playwright, essayist and dramaturge. They received various prizes for their plays, which are presented internationally, most recently the Kunstpreis Berlin 2020. Salzmanns debut novel »Außer sich« was awarded the Jürgen Ponto Stiftung Prize for Literature and the Mara Cassens Prize in 2017 and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize. It has been translated into sixteen languages. »Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein« won the Preis der Deutschen Literaturhäuser 2022 and was longlisted for the German Book Prize.

At 20:30 Maryna Zarubina is a member of the Ukrainian indie rock band NEWMA and fled the war in Ukraine to Hamburg. At Waldbühne, the singer will present young Ukrainian singer-songwriter music together with other musicians from Ukraine.


A three-week series of events brings together diasporic voices at the Waldbühne with readings and concerts.

The war in Ukraine resulted in a wave of solidarity and an openness to welcome people fleeing from this war. Because we love this energy and want it for all those who have to leave their homeland, every Thursday to Saturday the Summer Festival, in cooperation with the ZEIT Foundation and NDR, presents authors and musicians and their stories about times of upheaval and displacement, of the search for belonging and empowerment, and of global political and family entanglements. Each evening begins with a reading, including a discussion with the authors and NDR journalists, and continues with acoustic concerts in a small setting (programmed by Anas Aboura und Alexei Volinchik).

»There is no more beautiful way to tell of the pain for what is lost.«

» «
Deutschlandfunk Kultur

Reading: Sasha Marianna Salzmann

Talk: Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Julia Westlake (NDR Kultur, Moderation)

FUNDED BY ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius

IN COOPERATION with NDR Kultur