Czech Cultural Days in Greifswald 2026
Czech Culture Days in Greifswald 2026
with Dora Kaprálová and Michal Hvorecký.
Moderated by Tamina Kutscher
Reading & Discussion. In cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation MV.
In “The Maribor Hypnosis,” the narrator travels to the Slovenian city of Maribor to write a travel guide. But instead, she decides to explore the city from the perspective of a housefly. Contemporary figures and historical figures of the 20th century make appearances, notably a dictator and a hypnotist. The line between reality and fiction is blurred.
Dora Kaprálová has been nominated for the 2026 European Literature Prize for her original portrayal of a European city from the perspective of an insect.
The euphoria of the Velvet Revolution, the hopeful dawn of a new Europe, and today: the struggle against far-right cultural policies in Slovakia. Through his own story, Michal Hvorecký traces Europe’s path from the fall of the Iron Curtain to the resurgence of authoritarian ideologies —a sharp analysis of the current political landscape addressing the fragility of democracy, the power of civil society, the new dissidents of the 21st century, and the necessity of speaking out.
We’ll be speaking with the fiction writer and the nonfiction author about the upheavals in democracy and the shift to the right in Central and Eastern Europe.
Dora Kaprálová, born in 1975 in Brno, Czech Republic, lives in Berlin. The journalist and author has published a series of essays on migration, integration, exile, the communist legacy, Czech and European literature, and contemporary poetry.
Michal Hvorecký, born in 1976, lives in Bratislava. Hvorecký regularly contributes articles to the FAZ, Die Zeit, and numerous other magazines. In his home country, he is actively involved in defending press freedom and opposing anti-democratic developments.
Moderator: Tamina Kutscher, freelance journalist, Slavicist, and historian
Admission: 5 euros
