expanding its vaccination program in the east of the country. welcome to arts twenty one. almost three decades have passed since the collapse of the soviet union arch twenty one is on a journey to explore the literary world of post soviet republics were traveling to three capitals prague bucharest and tbilisi what they have in common is their socialist history where they differ is in their development since one thousand nine hundred ninety. a majestic console narrow alleyways and numerous domes and towers and impressive bridges spanning the top of. prague is a jewel with the middle any of that history city on them and. the dreariness of the

commons era is history. now prague is a popular destination for tourists from around the globe. to raise a similar to move our lives here the writer observes the hustle and bustle in the czech capital from an amused distance. though it is well i know she has to go to get over. but as obama. is lucky. yeah city broke that he has a new india. to raise us and want to move and her living as a translator her first novel is the story of a young woman who tried and failed to fit in wants to waffen hurt and disappointed she makes the radical decision to move into an old wardrobe left in a courtyard. the

country by. by she could live with other people with her sister her girlfriend her family and. on me but she doesn't want to be there and deal with other people. because she needs to deal with herself. at the same time she's somehow incapable of taking action and can't afford her own apartment. so that coverage gives her a bit of freedom in this provisional situation by height in their progress auditions it through up through. the protagonist feels lost in a way which could perhaps only happen in the success driven and consumer oriented western world it's a story that says honest as it is. the one constant in the young woman's life is a friendly vietnamese man she lets her use the washroom in

a shop and gets over smile and something to eat. this is more than a minute detail it's a nod to multiculturalism at a time when czech politicians often disparage the country spirit means minority is the czech republic xenophobia in twenty fifteen at the height of europe's refugee crisis the country accepted less than two hundred people and again about soon is for my generation it's extremely painful to hear that the czech republic refused to accept refugees. i didn't refuse to the government refused to i myself helped refugees he said so i had the flu thing and got hold of me when i drove to hungary and took a good look at the situation. and i formed my own opinion to get mocked. she says of course people in the czech republic appreciate the material freedoms and the opportunities to travel that they now have but she says many people's mindsets . slower to change some feeling secure and don't know how to handle freedom.

does that worry her. not in the next. eight finda he meant. i think people can see for themselves if they've elected the wrong politician. the villain the title as time goes on they notice ok maybe that wasn't so great. and has progress but sometimes you have to try things out before you realize that's a bad apple i won't use one of those again. proc casillas the city's landmark and houses the office of the czech president the current president milosevic approach china and pro russia stance has divided the country in the ukraine conflict he sided with russia and in twenty fifteen he called the wave of refugees flooding into europe unorganized invasion. the hakim toppled a shocked when seen with elected president he don't wait for the first truly free

country both before nine hundred eighty nine and after as a writer journalist and since twenty levon as program director of the bus live harper library. petition took histories like a huge pendulum with much love have all its one as high to one side as possible now it's right at the bottom but i hope we'll reach the other side again this is. just love how awful was czechoslovakia's last president and the first president of the czech republic after slovakia seceded in one thousand nine hundred three a former dissident was also a celebrated writer and a moral authority. shortly before his death last love personally brought topple to the library topple continues to curate the libraries cultural program as hospital would have wanted and he's kept on writing unusual novels his latest a sensitive person starts off as a road movie about a family of artists but soon turns into

a commentary on modern european society. question are you know. if this strange family is led by a father who is around my age. because he still has this desire to discover western europe. and it is what is europe this mental image that he has no longer exists. instead he encounters an unfriendly europe full of social tension plagued by crises and with accords of migrants walking around that particular through where. the school. so he returns to his homeland with all of its brothels scrapyards and boss it might not be the prettiest but at least it's good fun the novel and toppled the state award for literature in twenty seventeen and much public criticism. prague is booming and is now

among the ten richest regions europe the days when people here fought for socialism with a human face on long gone. it's easier to imagine right france kafka walked. through the city's alleyways at the start of the twentieth century back then prague was a magnet for artists and writers in check in german as the city was still part of the hub spec empire. a solution others yes everything's also nice looking so picturesque in the home but underneath the surface there are a few graves a few bodies lying buried on top of one another. and we have to live with these corpses these ghosts of the past and the hilly. jaroslav through dish study check history and says that to do that you need to know german otherwise he'd never have been able to conduct the research for his novel winter birds os journey it's a comical tribute to train travel central europe and life in general written in

german. the month. when you look at the map of the railway routes in austria hungary in one nine hundred thirteen and compare it with a map of the routes in central europe today you can see how many are left hotels four quarters ago i'm told that's all of these routes this station where we are now they all existed back then as a discussion domicile us together with his melancholy geriatric nasty young kraus ninety nine year old penciled in to back embark on a journey into the past taking his cue from a detailed guidebook dating back from one thousand thirteen he's drawn ever deeper into the country's history and his own. path such a film stalks into some little nonstandard afzal guru's that i once again want to czechoslovakia and stuff. stores also some broken ones and on atoms isis has the valley only a skull all stores also some governments and only after

a few it says the communist income own stores themselves up and go nuts and one of them's exposition as the soviets come outside the former hoops for me to stand on told. folks like. me end of history bringing the past to light in spite of these often sad events it's a shared nice to be along for the ride. change of location book arrest a city of contrasts with its grand socialist boulevards. characterless apartment blocks. and rundown buildings. romania's capitalism one stein amec and at a standstill. hard to rescue is one of romania's leading authors he's a masterful storyteller and an intellectual who isn't afraid to address uncomfortable truths that people who are poor in the nineties state for

most of them stay poor data stand out the bleeding good didn't change but at the same time there is there is now a very beach people who got their reach most of them ninety percent of them because of the corruption. corruption remains and in to make problem in romania. it was rife under the communist regime of dictator nicholas church a school who was executed in the revolution of one nine hundred eighty nine. the monstrous palace of parliament is a reminder of his megalomania. the old guard regrouped under the banner of the party of social democracy and corruption continued to fester even after romania joined the e.u. but here the problem is that people who have. already big problems to you but just these. fires are part option.

got into the parliament and. these kind of people make the laws not and of course they make the laws. against a free justice. the government has sought to ease penalties for corruption offenses by politicians hundreds of thousands have rallied against the erosion of the rule of law warning of a return to autocratic rule. the left leaning populist government has shown little willingness to listen it has strong backing among its voter base the rural poor. this is the very very. big power the spot be has it's very lysol end up poor a stand let's let's educate the people. to rescue his latest novel

son a weed has yet to be published in english translation it's protectionist is more concerned about the communities well being than his own. to rescue says he has learned that literature doesn't just need to be appealing it needs to address human concerns to . maybe as a reaction to remain is tense political situation. my model presents by no doubt to them or theme. look as a model mighty sheena that the bad one extra says on saturn's as a national fund could step in the set about thirty. dan de lay on my friends issue floyd if you know might open or are you. all. living your burnished his novel was a surprise success in romania it's the story of

a young woman who painstakingly tries to build a life for herself in book arrest while her mother works in spain. french to knows what it's like to feel abandoned her mother too has worked in western europe for years one of some four million romanians. i read recently a report of the un i think it was with the fosters depopulating countries in the world and they were all ten in eastern europe and germany was among them not the first not on the first place but still and it was like all our neighbors all the area hungary ukraine moldova they were all there in the list and it's. it's weird and makes you think because it was a global import. migrant workers sent a lot of money home but romania needs doctors teachers engineers and childcare workers and their critical voices. really are burnished doesn't want to leave the country even if she's been thinking about it for years she feels she belongs here

but daily life for the young author and translator is anything but easy the cost of living is high and the minimum wage low. so can authors make a living in romania. i think everybody has the feeling that you have to be thankful to see your name on the book cover and down just you know feed yourself with the glory they don't expect you to. ask to be paid for it. advance payments are uncommon and print runs are secret there are neither wholesalers nor such a thing is a fixed book price the market is small and dominated by international best sellers translate. of which don't pay much. many bookshops also sell wine gift items and t. to make ends meet. some booksellers had reservations about stocking cattle in metal york's novel oxenberg and bernstein not because it's badly written but because it

takes on a national taboo. in june one thousand forty one romanian troops massacre the jewish population of the city of yosh the yosh program more than ten thousand people were killed. to this day many romanians refuse to recognize their country's role in the holocaust. paramus tickle or ask that i theology i feel racial hatred is undermining humanity what saddens me in particular is this is what i said in one interview that the goal of my book is to help create a better world among my readers and if you. could merely use this. and that was singled out for ridicule by numerous hostile media outlets bush could pay. whatever me the video still. today just four thousand jews live in

romania it seems only a matter of time before jewish life here vanishes altogether all that remains is the communities architectural heritage and memories many of which inform me who acts during novel of tomato i'm not so young anymore and i wanted to write something that would make a difference what something that carried a certain weight at the end so i could walk through the rest of my life with my head held high from texas. which he should his novel is one of forty books from romania that have recently been published in germany wrote works by uncompromising authors who take a stand. one thousand five hundred kilometers further east lies to police the capital of the eurasian country of georgia. but the city itself is more european than asian it's teeming with life and singularly beautiful. into the lease is historical center the

buildings from past centuries of being lovingly restored and the crumbling remains of the soviet era of being swept away. highly acclaimed georgian dramatist and critics doubt its going to nia is following the changes to the city his country and its inhabitants closely. after decades of russian occupation where is the independent republic headed and how is it dealing with its past i think it needs years and years of experience stability and peace and economy development in the country to start talking about realizing in recent king our past. for georgians the past means centuries. a foreign room exploitation and oppression . it means jazz standard system of injustice soviet propaganda. as well as the hardships after georgia gained its independence in one nine hundred

ninety one. lack of political stability corruption and violence. poverty and hunger. battles over the breakaway republics of a posse and suffer a seizure we are so much preoccupied with this boiling temperature and this boiling political situation all the time that no one actually cares just to start a careful and quiet and calm a research of their previous history where the roots of all these problems come from. that's one reason why georgian literature is so in lightning it meanders its way through the small mind and tells the stories of its people revealing george's darkest sides and the many upheavals i don't go to. us it still looks the. other arabs. are so proudly.

i'm sure they're about as rio. and they were certain that exactly. no it's and it's from god this is through signal issues so that's. what's normal of us goes a very dark and dumb hollowed almost resume in that big number which are that mr obama says. a man has been killed across the way syrup so the whole thing because each night he would stand on his balcony and watch his new neighbor and his old another. now the good looking young man is dead and syrup takes action he longs to have a job again and now he knows how he can get one. doesn't get to me as novel farben down not all colors of night is a crime. well assess in the late summer of two thousand and twelve when georgians protested against the prison abuse scandal videos cropped up in the media which showed prisoners being obese and by guards. tens of thousands took to the streets

the country was on the brink of collapse. then on october first dark and billionaire between a ivanishvili assumed power and became georgia's prime minister. he stepped down a year later but remains influential to this day overlooking tbilisi is a vanished really is futuristic glass house designed by japanese architects and took a months of. in general george and culture is the culture of extreme eaters and i really don't like that extra little while i'll take the characters who are normal people who are not distinguished by any. anything and put them in boiling situation and keep of the observing something terrible happening program because that's that's my primary interest. what happens in me is novel reveals much about contemporary georgian society about its macho culture in which homosexuality remains a tipping that it's fear of change even positive change. on the streets of tbilisi

there's little indication of the sense of paralysis here things are lively and constantly in motion. although monotony does appear to be the rule in the cities outlying districts. really grew up in a village just outside the city she lived right next door to a children's home a relic of the soviet era. this is pretty much what it looked like then too when it was known as the home for idiots. today it houses refugees from a party and south ossetia. in the early ninety nine to use. its residents were unwanted children who were poor neglected abused and brutalized. they laughed and told us about a girl that they had held down while other children raped her. the girl cried and

then the other children made fun of her. and i noticed this had become a kind of ritual have been given to this often. feel some twenty years later nona it to me sweetly has with this childhood memories into a disturbing novel called the pear field she came up with the idea after seeing her former playmates begging on the street. now she's given these unloved and damaged souls a voice her protectiveness layla is a strong and angry young girl who fights back against the constant humiliation and degradation that's slim's going to kiss. the worst and most malicious soviet legacy is that people don't analyze things. people haven't learned to deal with reality and they don't believe they can change things and they never learn they have the power to change things with their own two hands. so what will the future bring

and we'll all georgians have a place in it. the ricer photographer actor and tour guide are still key cuts travels around the country often returning to tbilisi. he wonders between worlds a thoughtful observer. his novel elephant from the south which has already won several prizes in georgia takes the first person narrator on a tour of tbilisi for a day with flashbacks going as far back as the one nine hundred twenty s. . for people who are or who are three and carry. her every feeling go build a life by characters who are not hard being. behind some excuse. for are interested people. who are very well of previous a character's all very life also who can't forgive themselves because it tells the

story of an identity crisis full of ethnic conflicts and questions of the right or wrong lifestyle of truth and integrity. he says that the period when georgia was part of the soviet union damaged georgian society today georgians are still living with the consequences which are deeply ingrained in every family history. that's why i made my character sagal such a man the son of core opted for so we should all work on the bourse and from other side. recognition. the son of georgian a richer and richer and i gave him with this very heavy in harry teach which he has to. carry all his life fight through the streets the elephants of the south is the story of his generation once after a public reading a young girl came up to him and thanked him now she understood by her uncle in such

a drink and she said and by her neighbor was the way he was. sorry think that if we if you will be peace on the sling somehow step by step forward they were local water safety because i see people i see by to be very sure they are more open mind be more colorful very been variously for them to be invariable free them for we are my dear regime has a lot of conflicts we carry all our life. today georgia is looking towards the west english has replaced russian as its first foreign language traveling to the e.u. without a visa is possible georgia is a country in transformation and its. literature is a real discovery. and that's all for arts twenty one today and our literary travels to prague bucharest and tbilisi.

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