“ewig her und gar nicht wahr.” Reading and talk with Marina Frenk
Reading and talk as part of the international conference Beyond Nostalgia. New Appropriations of Late Socialism in Contemporary Eastern European Cultures, 11–12 Nov 2021 at the ZfL
Marina Frenk reads from her debut novel ewig her und gar nicht wahr (2020).
Can one play dead to escape certain execution? Render a curse harmless by locking the door? Forget the farewell and capture emotions on a screen? Kira tells the story of her family: a story of departures and transformations, of crocodiles and paper kites.
In the 1990s, Kira and her parents moved from Moldova to Germany. However, from her Russian-Jewish family, no one arrived anywhere. Kira not only looks at her own life, sometimes in a cynical and distanced way, but also at the life of her ancestors, some of whom she only knows from photographs. She travels to New York, Israel, and Moldova, and she tries to understand the many stories and process these in her large-format paintings.
Marina Frenk develops a fresh, visual, and very physical language. Her impressive, intricately constructed debut novel is a book on family and origin, on parenthood and childhood. It is a modern-day artist novel and, most of all, a love story.
Marina Frenk was born in Moldova in 1986. Since 1993, she lives in Germany. She is an actress and a musician, having been part of ensembles at the Schauspiel Köln, the Maxim Gorki Theater, and the Schauspielhaus Bochum. Along with Sibylle Berg, she received the 65th Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden in 2016 for “Und jetzt: die Welt!“ (engl.: And Now: The World!). In 2017, her audio drama „Jenseits der Kastanien“ (engl.: Beyond the Chestnuts) was awarded the European CIVIS Media Prize.