turkey negotiated a cease fire in september. 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 stones and towers and impressive bridges spanning the pathak. prague is a jewel with the middle any of history a city on the moon. the dreariness of the commons deraa 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 pulling no shows to go too good of a. host but as obama. is lucky. yeah city broke that he has a new india some us about. to raise us some 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 walk from patton disappointed she makes the radical decision to move into an old wardrobe left in a quarter. the

country by underdone warden by day she could live with other people with her sister her girlfriend her family and. withdraw out 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 ordered 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 that. the one constant in the young woman's life is a friendly vietnamese man he lets her use the washroom in the shop and good service

smile and something to eat. and this is more than a mere detail it's a nod to multiculturalism at a time when czech politicians often disparage the country's betweens 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 from i get up 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 at the flick 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.

mindsets are slower to change some feeling secure and don't know how to handle freedom. does that worry have. not in the last. thing that he mentions in these i think people can see for themselves if they've elected the wrong politician. the title as time goes on they notice ok maybe that wasn't so great. and i was 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 me last the months 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 an organized invasion. the hakim toppled

a shock when seen with the next president he don't wait for for a 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 love how the library. history is like a huge pendulum with lots of havel it's won as high to one side as possible now it's right at the bottom but i hope to reach the other side again. must love how awful was czechoslovakia as the 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 of moral authority. shortly before his death last love personally brought topple to the library topple continues to curate the library's cultural program as half a would have wanted and he's kept on writing unusual novels his latest a sensitive person starts off as a road movie about. family of artists but soon turns into

a commentary on modern european society. pressure not to get a comedian too if this strange family is led by a father who's around my age or somebody has to do because he still has this desire to discover western europe. in it as much as europe this mental image that he has no longer exists for his will you know what a simple tool was instead he encounters an unfriendly europe full of social tension plagued by crises and with accords of migrants walking around here that puts him up for the who are cool and know i'm in charge of 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 muir of the days when people here four for socialism with a human face on long gone. it's easier to imagine right up front kafka walking through the cities anyways at the start of the twentieth century back then prague was a magnet for artists and writers in check and german as the city was still part of the hub spec empire. the soundest and 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 when to burke's last journey it's a comical tribute to train. travel to central europe and life in general written in

germany. a 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 god is in this capsule damo solace together with his melancholy geriatric nasty young kraus ninety nine year old pencil vinterberg embarked 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. doubts of the form stuart little once and all of us assumes that i want to again with czechoslovakia and stop. all stores also some broken ones and one of the rises. will be a scholar from all stores also some good ones and will not field since the

communist income own stores themselves up north and one of those expeditions was the soviets caught outside the former route for leader stands for talks for the slice of. winter back me and us through the course of history bringing the past to light in spite of these often sad events it's a sheer delight 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 capital is it once dynamic and at a standstill. future country 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 ninety's stayed for

most of them stayed poor data stand out the bleeding good didn't change but at the same time. there is now a class of very beach people who got their reach most of them ninety percent of them because of the corruption. corruption remains and in demick problem in romania . it was rife under the communist regime dictator nicholai 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. . the problem is that people who have already been programmed so you can buy just these. fires but 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 that the spot he has it's very light on the poorest and less less educated people. here chuck. rescue's latest

novel so no weed has yet to be published in english translation it's protectionist is more concerned about the community's well being than his own. 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. mamata presents by no doubt to them or one could. look at as a model. that the ban on extra says on saturn's as a national fund a good step in the said what the. dandy on my friends issue floyd if you know might open or are you. live in 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 and book arrest while her mother works in spain. punished and 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 fastest 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 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 it 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 then 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 as a fixed book price the market is small and dominated by international best sellers translations of which don't pay much. money bookshops also sell wine gift items and t. to make ends meet. some booksellers had reservations about stocking cattle in mccool yorks 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 refused to recognize their country's role in the holocaust. or am a stakeholder asked to judge i feel racial hatred is undermining humanity what saddens me in particular is this is what i said in one interview the goal of my book is to help create a better world among my readers and if you. could team alias this. and that was singled out for ridicule by numerous hostile media outlets lishka. one of another meet the video asked here. 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 it is having a little 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 the sea the capital of the eurasian country of georgia. but the city itself is more european than and usually it's teeming with life and singularly beautiful. and to this is historical sense to

the buildings from past centuries of being lovingly restored. and the crumbling remains of the soviet era are being swept away. highly acclaimed georgian dramatist and critics doubt it 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 of stability and peace and economic development in the country to start talking about realizing in recent king our past. for georgians the past means centuries of foreign rule exploitation and oppression . it means joseph stalin 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 passing 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 to start careful and quiet and calm a research of the previous history of where the roots of all these problems come from. that's one reason why georgian literature is so in lightening it meanders its way through the small mind and tells the stories of its people revealing george's darker sides and the many upheavals i don't go to. it's still looks that i must source other arabs. are so proudly a. music.

in the research exactly so. i know it's and it's from god this small signal is shit so that's. what's normal of us goes over the end of the whole of the most recent big number which are about almost. a man who's been killed across the way. the whole thing because each night he would stand on his balcony and watch his new neighbor and his older lover. now the good looking young man is dead. takes action he longs to have a job again and now he knows how he can get one. dollar good money as novel farben done enough to all colors of night is a crime thriller set 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 bygones. tens of thousands took to the streets the

country was on the brink of collapse. then on october first oligarchy and billionaire had bitten 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 of any futuristic glass house designed by japanese architect. in general george and culture is the culture of extreme eaters and i really don't like that extra little while i take the characters who are normal people who are not distinguished by any . anything and put them in boiling situation and observing something terrible happening to them was that's that's my primary interest. what happens in dava cabrini as novel reveals much about contemporary georgian society about its macho culture in which homosexuality remains a tipping about 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 city's outlying districts. now not 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 one nine hundred ninety s. 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. some twenty years later nona ectomy sheerly has with these 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. slim stone took us 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

will all georgians have a play. isn't it. the price of photographer actor and to guide us he'll be cuts travels around the country often returning to tbilisi. he wanders between worlds a thoughtful observer. his novel elephant from the self 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. . are following go people who are thinking oh oh poor where's harry feeling of beauty like my characters who are not hiding. behind some excuses. for really are interesting people. who are be really gets a character's all very life also who can 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's history. it's why i made my character sagal such a man the son of core opted for soul which a doorway for me both and from other side drudging recognition. the son of georgia made a mission briefing i gave him with this very heavy in harry teach which he has to. carry all his life and fight with these 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 is such

a drinker she said and by her neighbor was the way he. odds. are i think that if you quit if you could be peace overstrained somehow step by step through it they were local words to say it because i see people i see by children give her a share of a are more open minded they are born our for very very risky for me a very poor free react my dear a ship is where local conflicts we carry all over that 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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