HN & HCMC – Book Presetation “In Times of Fading Light”
Hanoi: Wed 09 May 2018, 7.30 pm
Goethe Institut
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HCMC: Mon 14 May 2018, 7 pm
Ca phe Thu Bay
264 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Str., Dist. 3 (2nd Floor), HCMC
From Goethe Institut:
You are cordially invited to a presentation of a novel with an autobiographical background which reflects the history of East Germany (German Democratic Republic – GDR) in the story of a family. The author Eugen Ruge and his translator Hoang Dang Lanh will be present at the event.
The narrative of the story spans over three generations. After they returned from an exile in Mexico, the grandparents remained faithful to communism and considered it as a foundation to build a new Germany. Their son came home from the Soviet Union with a Russian wife and despite dire lager experiences, stuck with his belief in the political idea of socialism. The grandson, growing up in the GDR; decided to leave his home country on his grandfather’s ninetieth birthday. The title of the book refers to the early autumn season, to the memories of the Russian grandmother, and also metaphorically alludes to the fading radiance of a communist utopia that lost its credibility due to the failed socialist experiment in the GDR.
The novel was awarded the Alfred Döblin Prize in 2009, the Aspekte Literature Prize in 2011 and the German Book Prize in the same year.
Eugen Ruge (*24.06.1954 in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union) is the son of the GDR historian Wolfgang Ruge, who had been deported by the Soviet rulers in the Siberian camp 239; his mother is Russian. Eugen Ruge came to East Berlin together with his parents at the age of two. The novel, hence, contains his biographical features.
After studying mathematics and a successful diploma at the Humboldt University Berlin Eugen Ruge became a research assistant at the Central Institute for Physics of the Earth of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. In 1986 he began working as a writer, documentary filmmaker and scriptwriter. In 1988 he moved to the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 1989 he works mainly as an author for theater, radio and film. In addition to his translations of several Chekhov plays and authoring for documentary films and plays, he held temporary guest professorship at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2011 he made his debut as a novelist entitled „In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts”, for which he received the German Book Prize.
Language: German – Vietnamese
Free admission
| Goethe-Institut Hanoi 56-58 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Ba Dinh, Hanoi Tel.: +84 24 3734 2251 Fax: +84 24 3734 2254 [email protected] website |
