'Auf Deutsch kann ich mich nicht belügen'. Schreiben in einer fremden Sprache: Katja Petrowskaja und Tanja Maljartschuk

Abstract

Katja PETROWSKAJA, born in Kiev in 1970, won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2013 with an excerpt from her book Vielleicht Esther. Five years later, it is again a young woman from Ukraine, Tanja MALJARTSCHUK, born in 1983 in Ivano-Frankivsk, who wins the prestigious prize with the text Frösche im Meer. The two writers also have in common their late learning of the German language. 'My German remained somehow inaccessible and saved me from routine' (PETROWSKAJA). 'I can fool myself in Ukrainian' (MALJARTSCHUK). Why two Ukrainian women made the choice to write in a foreign language and what this attempt means for them literarily will be discussed in the article