„Beweiskörper“ – Lesung & Gespräch mit Susanna Hast

In the organizer's words:

Moderation: Tanja Küddelsmann, translator

An evocative search for traces of traumatic experiences in one's own childhood:

First there are the spaces: her grandmother's garden, the bright green mental hospital, a village in northern Finland. The narrator returns there to understand why her childhood ended abruptly at the age of twelve. A crime happened, but no one called the police, collected evidence or interrogated witnesses. Had anything happened at all? Years later, she becomes an investigator in her own right; her body becomes an archive that remembers, even if the injuries are invisible. Her search for clues does not bring healing, but self-determination in dealing with the past.

In her debut novel, Susanna Hast explores traumatic experiences and sexual violence against women. She reflects on guilt, shame, sexuality and motherhood and refers to authors such as Hélène Cixous and Maggie Nelson. The text is a feminist genre hybrid of novel, memoir and essay.

Susanna Hast (*1981) is an author, artist and musician. She has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Lapland, researches war and violence and teaches creative writing at the Uniarts Helsinki University of the Arts. "Beweiskörper" was awarded the literary prize of the daily newspaper "Helsingin Sanomat" for the best debut novel of the year in 2022.

Tanja Küddelsmann (*1968) grew up bilingual (German-Finnish) and studied English and German literature. She has been working as a translator from Finnish since 2013.

A cooperation with the Finnish Institute, the Literaturhaus Hamburg and the Nordic Literature Days.