Can words restore the memory of a people under constant threat and give meaning to an existence marked by violence? In both Sofia Andrukhóvitx’s novel Amadoca. La historia de Romana y Uliana (Salamandra, 2026) and the philosophical testimony La vida al límite (Asteroide, 2026), by Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko, writing becomes a means of resisting oblivion and rebuilding the connections between memory, territory and identity.

In her sweeping historical novel, Andrukhóvitx explores the scars that war, totalitarianism and silence have left on the bodies and generations of Eastern Europe throughout the 20th century. In their powerful philosophical reportage, intellectuals and activists Ogarkova and Yermolenko take us to the harsh reality of the war front and turn their humanitarian journeys into ‘an art of loving their land’.

In conversation with writer and journalist Margaryta Yakovenko, herself the author of a story about family memory, we examine the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and reflect on the place of literature in the face of violence and destruction.

Session with simultaneous interpretation.

Free admission. Limited capacity.