A SPACE BOUNDED BY SHADOWS

YouTube premiere "From Kreisky's living room"

ROBERT MISIK IN CONVERSATION WITH EMINE SEVGI ÖZDAMAR
A SPACE BOUNDED BY SHADOWS

After the coup in 1971, the military holds not only the lives but also the dreams of the people of Turkey captive. Artists, left-wingers and intellectuals fear for their existence, including the narrator, who flees from Istanbul across the sea to Europe. In her luggage: the desire to become an actress and the unconditional desire to publicise and keep alive the cultural wealth of her country, which has been cut short so abruptly, without allowing herself to be limited to her mere origins in the »zoo of languages«. And there, in the middle of divided Berlin, on the boulevards of Paris, in dialogue with admired poets and thinkers, she finally finds herself in the »pause of hell«, where art, politics and life seem to be fully compatible.
Sevgi Özdamar's new novel „Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum“ is a polyphonic paean to a post-war Europe in which, for a short time, it seemed possible to break down borders with the means of poetry alone. It is a longing obituary for the friends, artists and acquaintances who accompanied her on her journey.
Above all, however, it is the eloquent opening of a space between threat and security, a space bounded by shadows.
As part of her reading tour through Austria, Sevgi Özdamar meets Robert Misik in Bruno Kreisky's living room and talks to him about her life and her new book.

Emine Sevgi Özdamar grew up in Istanbul, where she attended drama school. In the mid-seventies, she went to Berlin and Paris and worked with directors Benno Besson, Matthias Langhoff and Claus Peymann. She has taken on numerous film roles and has been writing theatre plays, novels and short stories since 1982. Emine Sevgi Özdamar lives in Berlin. She was awarded the Bavarian Book Prize in 2021.
Robert Misik, Author and journalist

An event organised in cooperation with the Upper Austrian Initiative.Literature ship, the Salzburg Literature Forum Reading lamp and the Suhrkamp Verlag.

Emine Sevgi Özdamar:
A SPACE BOUNDED BY SHADOWS
Suhrkamp Verlag, December 2021 (2nd edition), 28,- €