Event as part of the 31st Schwerin Literature Days
JUGO – Reading with Ilija Matusko
They see each other only once a year, and every time they end up in a fight. The father, who came to Germany as a young man, started a family here, worked in a restaurant, and left the country thirty years later to return to Croatia. And the son, who lives in Berlin, has become a writer, and spends his vacation at his father’s guesthouse on the Adriatic coast. In seemingly small moments, they discover an unexpected closeness: when, accompanied by the Jugo, the warm southerly wind, they take a boat to the island off the bay, play tennis on the court of a dilapidated hotel, or visit the family’s small field in Bosnia. Little by little, they clear away old, overgrown paths—toward one another and toward their shared history.
“Jugo” is a declaration of love for the father who is at once close and distant, whose return to his old homeland was more difficult than his arrival in a foreign country. With great sensitivity, Matusko explores the past, tells stories of family and the conflicts in the disintegrating Yugoslavia, and traces a feeling that connects them both: never having quite arrived.
Ilija Matusko, born in 1980, studied sociology and political science. He lives and works as a freelance writer in Berlin. He has received numerous fellowships for his work, most recently a fellowship at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. In 2023, *Verdunstung in der Randzone* was published by edition suhrkamp. *Jugo* is his debut novel.
Moderator: Emily Grunert, Director of Literaturbüro NRW
Saturday, October 31, 2026,
, 7:30 p.m.
Kulturforum Schleswig-Holstein-Haus, Puschkinstraße 12
Admission
Box office: 14.00 € / Advance sales: 12.00 € (plus ticket fee)
Click here for TICKETS
Organizer
, Cultural Office of the State Capital Schwerin
