Europäische Literaturtage: Like a bad dream: Yara Nakahanda Monteiro and Ivana Sajko

In her novel, "Every Departure is a Small Death", which was recently published in German, Ivana Sajko tells the story of a writer and his insight into the impossibility of a fulfilling life. Love seems impossible and yet seems like the last resort, the dreary reality is opposed to optimism. As in her award-winning family novel, which tells of the wars in Yugoslavia, helplessness and hope intersect. A laconic sense of humor shines through. With her debut novel, "Gravity of Tears", Yara Nakahanda Monteiro delves into Angola's traumatic history, a story of war, violence and ghosts of the past that cannot be shaken off. "The war makes us monsters," she says, referring to her own experiences as a child at war and her perception of the war in Ukraine. In the face of horror and suffering, is it unbearable to talk about comedy? Or is the comic something that, like hope, points beyond the abyss of violence and destruction?