Zamirovskaya: For now, I'm not writing books

"Today we will have a sad meeting," is how writer Tatsiana Zamirovskaya greets her readers at the Babel Books Store in Berlin. On July 20, the first European presentation of her book "Eurydice, check if you turned off the gas," which was published in 2024, took place here.

Tatsiana emigrated to the USA 11 years ago and had not left the country's borders for just as long. She spoke with readers in Berlin about emigration, the anxiety that helps write books, and the fear of living in the USA today.

"It's good that we are together"

Most of those who came to the meeting with writer Tatsiana Zamirovskaya in Berlin are waiting outside for it to begin. Many hug and comfort each other: just two hours before the presentation, it became known that Belarusian writer Sviatlana Kurs had died in Warsaw.

Inside the bookstore, conversations about life and its complexities are taking place. A girl from Russia in the front rows asks her casual neighbors about the sanctions currently in force against Belarus: she asks because she plans a long-awaited meeting with her parents there.

"If you are not on the wanted list and it's safe for you to go, then Belarus is a wonderful country for a meeting," says a Belarusian who himself hasn't been home for five years. "The border is not very busy now; you'll pass in 4-5 hours."

"Four to five hours by train?" the Russian woman asks in surprise.

"Trains haven't been running for six years," the Belarusian calmly explains.

The bookstore is small, and this evening it gathers a full house – some even have to stand outside. Many hold Tatsiana Zamirovskaya's books with bookmarks, colorful stickers, and underlines.

"When there are pencil underlines in a book, you involuntarily want to peek at what the person highlighted for themselves," one of the readers starts a conversation with a man nearby.

As it turns out, he is from Argentina but lives in Germany, where he learned German and Russian. Zamirovskaya is one of his favorite contemporary writers.

Tatsiana begins the meeting with words about Sviatlana Kurs.

"You know, today everything went wrong," says Tatsiana. "We just found out that Sviatlana died. It's a sad day for everyone involved in Belarusian literature. But it's good that we are together today and can think about Sveta, can say how much we love her, that death doesn't exist and that we will continue to love her."

"For now, I'm not writing books"

At the very beginning, Tatsiana Zamirovskaya asks the audience to ask her many questions. And the meeting indeed takes the form of a dialogue. She is asked about her choice of genre, artistic techniques unique to her, the theme of emigration, which, according to her, will never end in her work, and also about her hometown of Barysaŭ.

The writer even seems touched that there are so many people in the audience who know her books so well.

The collection of essays "Eurydice, check if you turned off the gas," which Tatsiana presented in Berlin, was published back in 2024. According to Zamirovskaya, it was born thanks to a homework assignment in a course she taught for people who found themselves in emigration.

Tatsiana completed this assignment along with everyone else — she wrote about her year 2022 and about the concerts she attended to lift herself out of a state of indifference.

"Each of us has a version of ourselves that we said goodbye to," says Tatsiana. "For me, it was the identity of a Belarusian music critic — before emigrating from Belarus, I wrote a lot about music. In 2022, I worked in media, huge streams of terrible news passed through me, and it seemed to me that I had forgotten how to cry. I started going to concerts of my favorite bands and writing down where I cried and where I didn't. That's how a big essay was born, from which this book began."

Where did such an unusual title come from? Tatsiana says that when choosing a title, she wrote down several phrases from the future book. When she read this one, she was "struck by it."

"For me, the break with Belarus always manifested through anxiety, when we constantly seem to look back, return, and check if we turned off that very gas. Anxiety became a very narrative state for me; it inspires me to translate my experiences into words. But fear paralyzes. And for now, I'm not writing books: the last year has been difficult for me due to what is happening in America. It's scary to live in a country where they don't want to see you. I don't want to delve into this, but America right now is not the happiest place," says the writer.

"It's like I'm watching a movie about my digital resurrection"

Tatsiana Zamirovskaya left Belarus in 2015. According to her, it was emigration that shaped her as a Belarusian writer.

"It seems to me everyone needs to go through something destructive to become an author," she says.

At the same time, the theme of emigration remains one of the central ones in her books.

"Now I'm having such an emotional moment, when for the first time in 11 and a half years I crossed the border into Europe — as if the border between life and death. I always wondered: what will it be like when I first leave America? And now I've come to Europe, I see all of you, and it's like I'm watching a movie about my digital resurrection.

It seems to me that, in general, all those who left have, as it were, died for those who remained, and vice versa. There is a digital, verbal connection between us, but we have, as it were, become ghosts to each other on screens."

According to Tatsiana, in emigration, she became braver in how and what she writes about.

"Before, I seemed to hide behind some Buddhist parables, I couldn't write in the first person. In New York, I realized that I could do it directly; there's no point in asking yourself what people will think of you — no one will think anything, everyone doesn't care."

Tatsiana is asked if New York has already become a character in her books. According to her, it's not in the last book at all, even despite the descriptions.

"This book, for me, is about attempts to remember Minsk. I remember it in fragments, but when I try to assemble them into a route, it falls apart."

"And Barysaŭ?" someone clarifies from the audience.

"There's a lot of Barysaŭ here too. I lived there for 17 years and in Minsk for 17 years. And something tells me I'll live in New York for 17 years too. Honestly, in emigration, photos of Minsk don't evoke emotions in me, but Barysaŭ... I start to sob when I see them," says the writer.

Currently, according to Tatsiana, she temporarily cannot write, but in the future, a translation of her stories into English will be released.

"I don't write in the genre 'how terrible everything is in Belarus,' and in America, you can only sell something like 'look what totalitarianism there is in Belarus.' But by some miracle, I sent my stories to one publisher, they liked them, they got involved, and said they would publish them," Tatsiana shares.

After the meeting, Tatsiana Zamirovskaya signed her books for about 40 more minutes. People approached her from her past life in Belarus, and from her current life — in the USA and New York.

It is there, according to her, that she feels at home: "I understood this very clearly after traveling to Europe," she wrote on her Facebook.

• 6
• 0
• 0
• 1
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0