Interested in German books? Join us for another session of our book club to discuss (in German) the novel 'Eine Formalie in Kiew" by Dmitrij Kapitelman. New members welcome!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Dmitrij Kapitelman tells the story of a family that moved to a foreign land to start a new life and ends up without any place where they feel like they truly belong.
Told with the bittersweet humor of a son who stoically tries to become a German citizen.
Dmitrij Kapitelman can speak the Saxon dialect better than the official to whom he applies for a German passport. After 25 years as a compatriot, so most of his life. But no formality is too small for German bureaucracy when it comes to immigrants. Ms. Kunze demands a certified copy of his birth certificate from Kiev. So he travels to the city of his birth, with which nothing connects him except childhood memories. These memories are beautiful, because they contain loving, unfailing parents. And difficult, because at present the family is divided.
"Only through this book is it possible to understand migration, non-belonging, and the in-between." Olga Gryaznova
Reading Sample in German
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dmitrij Kapitelman, born in Kiev in 1986, came to Germany with his family as a "contingent refugee" at the age of eight. He studied political science and sociology at the University of Leipzig and graduated from the German School of Journalism in Munich. Today he works as a freelance journalist. In 2016, his first, successful book
Das Lächeln meines unsichtbaren Vaters (The Smile of My Invisible Father) was published, for which he won the Klaus-Michael Kühne Prize. For his second book,
Eine Formalie in Kiew (2021), Kapitelman was awarded the Family Novel Book Prize by the Ravensburger Verlag Foundation.
Text source: Carls Hanser Verlag
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
Everyone who would like to read and discover German books and share their reading experience with others is welcome. The conversation will be in German. All participants should have sufficient language skills to read and discuss in German.
Participation is free of charge.
Registration
If you are not a regular member of the book club please register your interest by sending an email to library-glasgow@goethe.de. We will add you to our book club mailing list.
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