Alhierd Bacharevič (Belarus/ Germany)
Opening Speech – People, Fairy Tales, and Utopias: How Literature Warns, When It Matters, and What It Teaches
For his novel Europe’s Dogs, banned in Belarus, he received the 2025 Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding. Bacharevič is a co-founder of PEN Berlin. The jury’s statement reads: “Alhierd Bacharevič achieves with his bursting-at-the-seams novel Europe’s Dogs a furious literary vision of the future. … A quirky idler appears as the inventor of a utopian language, a fearless boy assists a spy and finds refuge under the wings of a greylag goose like Nils Holgersson, and the healing powers of a withered old woman are sought throughout the entire dictatorial hyper-state. One cannot tell the story of Europe and its abysses more passionately.” The author, essayist, translator, and former punk musician lives in exile in Germany.
Greetings:
Dr. Benita Chelvier, Mayor of Graal-Müritz
Dörthe Hausmann, Managing Director of the Tourism and Spa Corporation Graal-Müritz
Ulrich Schreiber, Festival Director
Introduction: Volker Weichsel
Entry: €10/ reduced €5
