With Jānis Joņevs and Aram Pachyan

Latvian writer Jānis Joņevs’ debut novel "Doom 94", about a youth in 1990s Latvia, became a bestseller that has now been translated into nine languages. The semi-biographical coming-of-age novel tells the story of a boy growing up in the provincial town of Jelgava who first discovers Nirvana, then the metal scene and makes new friends at music swap meets and concerts in abandoned bunkers. Joņevs paints the portrait of a generation in search of its own identity and an adolescent striving to be part of a youth culture.

The Armenian writer Aram Pachyan sets out in search of a new style of fragmentary narrative with the experimental novel "P/F". The old and the new Yerevan, the Getar river, the defunct streetcar and a lonely man trying to find himself in the city of his fading memories all meet within its pages. While it can be read as autofiction, the experimental employment of language and its fragmentation constantly undermine a stable autobiographical construction.

Jānis Joņevs and Aram Pachyan, who both have received the European Union Prize for Literature for their works, will read from their texts and exchange ideas about writing after independence, the resemantification of urban spaces and the dynamics of subcultural identities under post-Soviet conditions.

Moderation: Sona Mnatsakanyan
Speaker: Paul Walther
Language: Armenian, English

Tickets & Further Information

The event is part of the special programme Echo Echo. Post-Soviet Cosmopolis at the internationales literaturfestival berlin 2022. The series is a cooperation between the "Temporal Communities" Cluster of Excellence and the ilb.