Anyone who has teeth can laugh - book premiere with Zyta Rudzka and her translator Lisa Palmes

In her award-winning novel, anyone who has teeth can laugh, Zyta Rudzka takes us into the world of Wera - a barber with a sharp tongue, a tireless sense of humor and a great distance from herself. Her hope-based survival strategies get her through the most difficult times. Her husband, Jockey, is dead and she has to take care of the funeral. She is missing everything, but she has to find the most important thing: shoes for the coffin. We meet a woman who has seen everything and whose repartee hides sadness.

With Wera, Zyta Rudzka has created a defiant life artist. Her linguistic wit draws from the inventiveness of those who have to live from hand to mouth - and the art of literature. Lisa Palmes pulls out all the stops in her masterful translation.

Moderation: Karolina Golimowska (Polish Institute Berlin)
Free entry

Zyta Rudzka, born in Warsaw in 1964, is a psychologist and author of novels, dramas and screenplays. She has received numerous awards for her stage plays and prose. So far her novels Dr. Joseph's Most Beautiful (2009) and Mikveh (2014) were published. Anyone who has teeth can laugh won the Nike Literature Prize in 2023 and was on the Polish bestseller lists for months.

Lisa Palmes, born in Münster in 1975, translated from Polish among other things. Joanna Bator and Olga Tokarczuk. She has received numerous awards for her work, most recently the Karl Dedecius Prize in 2017. She was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2024 for her translation of Joanna Bator's novel Bitternis.

Karolina Golimowska is a translator and author, and she is responsible for the literature and debate program at the Polish Institute Berlin.

A joint event of the Polish Institute Berlin with Matthes & Seitz
https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/lachen-kann-wer-zaehne-hat.html?lid=1

The conversation will be simultaneously interpreted in Polish<>German

Photo: Laura Bielak