Republik der Taubheit

“We lived happily during the war,” writes Ilya Kaminsky, a Ukrainian living in the U.S., in his internationally acclaimed parable *The Republic of Deafness*. When a deaf boy watching a puppet show is shot by soldiers, the residents of the occupied town of Vasenka resist: they pretend to be deaf and coordinate their protest in sign language. Among the resistance fighters are Alfonso and Sonya, who are expecting a child. Vasenka is a theater of war, but also a place where love flourishes, where people show each other signs of solidarity. Kaminsky’s book confronts us with images of war of uncanny power: it is at once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea against silence. Members of the Munich Kammerspiele ensemble will read from this visually powerful text this evening.
Ilya Kaminsky, who was born in Odessa, now lives in the U.S. and will speak with author Deborah Benjamin Kaufmann about his writing following the reading.