SON LEWANDOWSKI »DIE ROUTINEN«

In the organizer's words:

Eating a jelly baby, an arm today, a leg tomorrow. What sounds like a joke is everyday life for competitive gymnast Amik. For her, every gram counts, every competition, every repetition. And Amik accepts every limit she crosses. "The Routines" dissects a world that everyone knows is tough, but no one sees or wants to see how exploitative a system with so much glitter and gloss spray on it is.

Munich. Montreal. Tokyo. When the Olympic Games come around, the whole world looks at one city, one team, one gymnast. The girls and women train their entire lives for this moment. From this "we" of gymnasts, who think in Olympic years, who are pushed from training onto the scales to the competitions, emerges an "I", the gymnast Amik. She bows to the merciless competitive principles of her sport and with every step she takes towards the winner's podium, she moves further away from the girls who comforted her yesterday. In a powerful way, Son Lewandowski tells of sport and politics, of fragile relationships and the limits of one's own ageing body. The stories of famous gymnasts and the biggest abuse scandal in sports history are woven into Amik's story, making "The Routines" a breathless reading experience.

Son Lewandowski is an author and curator living in Cologne. In 2023, she was invited to the Klagenfurt Literature Course and the LCB Authors' Workshop. She was shortlisted for the Edit Essay Prize that year with "Die kurzen Karrieren". In 2024 she was supported by the Jürgen Ponto Foundation's Spaltmaße scholarship and in 2025 by the Kunststiftung NRW working scholarship. "Die Routinen" is nominated for the lit.cologne debut prize.

In cooperation with the Institute of German Studies, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies and the Graduate School of Contemporary Literature at the University of Bonn

Main Building University of Bonn, Lecture Hall 7

Registration under: Registration Son Lewandowski

Price information:

Free admission, registration is requested: https://form.jotform.com/260853926835064