THE SMELL OF SOOT AND ROSES

Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Julya Rabinowich

THE SMELL OF SOOT AND ROSES

How does an author live with two homelands - especially when the old one - Russia - draws the new one - Austria - deeper and deeper into conflict?

In her new novel „The Smell of Soot and Roses“, Viennese author Julya Rabinowich explores a highly topical and deeply moving question: What happens when the war is over? Her main character Madina ventures on a journey to her old homeland. It is a story about the abyss into which a war plunges so many families. „The Smell of Soot and Roses“ is based on countless conversations with war survivors and their family members. In real life, the war that Russia has started against Ukraine rages on. It is dragging the EU deeper and deeper into the conflict. Rabinowich's new homeland, Austria, is finding it difficult to position itself in solidarity with Ukraine and clearly name Russia's war of aggression. How does the author deal with this?

Julya Rabinowich, born in St Petersburg, has lived in Vienna since 1977. She is a writer, a columnist for Der Standard and worked for many years as a simultaneous interpreter. Not only between two languages, but also two cultures. Her novels include: Spaltkopf, Herznovelle, Dazwischen: Ich, Dazwischen: We.

Tessa Szyszkowitz, born in Stuttgart, has lived in London since 2010. The journalist and author was previously a correspondent in Moscow, Brussels and Jerusalem. She is a columnist for Weltpolitik in Falter, curator of the Philoxenia series at the Kreiskyforum and a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Julya Rabinowich:
The smell of soot and roses
Zsolnay Verlag, August 2023, ISBN 978-3-446-27713-7, 18,- €