Vladimir Sorokin. Photo by Ali Ghandtschi
On the high of last week’s theoretical bumps, this week landed us in utopian and dystopian settings - and the theme of legal and illegal stimulants.
Our favourite event of the festival so far was a multi-medial reading from Vladimir Sorokin’s new novel The White Square on Tuesday evening. The eponymous square was many things: a white table, the name of a TV-show format but also a drug dose, administered to the guests of this show. The high-octane content combined with German actor’s Roland Schäfer’s dramatic reading of the translation and black-and-white projections of Ivan Razumov’s illustrations proved an energizing mix indeed. Memorable: the panorama of Russia images opened by Sorokin’s excerpt – Russia as folk song, Russia as a vast and dangerous cave and, finally, Russia as a frozen louse that wakes up every 10 years.
It's not just TV shows that deal in substances. Over several days, the dedicated section “The Politics of Drugs” sought solutions to end the war on drugs. Mafia expert Federico Varese, a highlight, explained in his talk on international organized crime and illegal drug trade that many legalization measures focus only on profit instead of health and medicalization, treating drugs as any other commodity.
Hot on the heels of Varese’s lecture at the Literaturhaus, a panel debating The Future of Drug Policies sought to bring some closure on Tuesday night. However, the five German and Polish writers and drug researchers assembled didn’t engage in debate, only agreeing that legalization is desirable, albeit hard to bring about in the political realm. Eminent German researcher Heino Stöver noted that we need to deconstruct the concept of addiction and to rethink the ways we stigmatize addicts. Łukasz Kamieński, author of Shooting Up which illuminates the connection of warfare and narcotics, hinted towards a future possibility of 3D printed drugs and neuroengineering, a virtual high induced by waves, beyond any substance.
Power is a drug too and Dmitry Glukhovsky had lots to say about that on Wednesday. His novel Text, where an ex-inmate kills the drug-dealing cop that put him behind bars and keeps him alive virtually sounded intriguing enough. But the real deal was the discussion after. “What happens in Russia is crazier than any fantasy novel,” Glukhovsky explained, outlining two castes within System Putin: The few ones with absolute power who are above ethics, and the powerless majority which has to conform to moral standards.
If the lit fest taught us anything, it is this: Look beyond the label and judge for yourself.
With only two days left to go, this is your last time to get your fix.