Sasha Filipenko – A conversation about elephants, politics and other obstacles

One day they’re just there. As if out of nowhere, they suddenly appear in the city, standing in the streets and squares, living amongst the people and moving into the houses: the elephants. Nora Zukker talks to Sasha Filipenko about his novel *The Elephants*.

NOTE: The interview is now conducted in Belarusian and German and translated into German by Iryna Herasimovich.

Elephants everywhere! Yet people pretend nothing has changed. Only the stand-up comedian Pavel refuses to remain silent and calls on people to face up to reality. In doing so, he risks everything: his life, his freedom and, above all, his love for Anna.

Sasha Filipenko knows what it’s like to live under a dictatorship. Two criminal cases have been brought against him in Belarus; he now lives in Switzerland. The charge: ‘Used literature to insult security forces, civil servants and patriotic citizens, which led to mass protests in Belarus.’ The good news is that literature has the power to move people.

With *Die Elefanten* (*The Elephants*), he presents a novel that reveals, with equal subtlety, how dictatorships – and, sadly, the people who live under them – function.

Samuel Streiff reads excerpts from the text in German.

© Image: Lukas Lienhard/ Diogenes Verlag