Lena Gorelik in Bad Aibling: Reading from All My Mothers
Date and Time
Artist
Location
Price
About this Event
Mood
Venue Type
Lena Gorelik reads in Bad Aibling about the many faces of the mother
On Thursday, October 29, 2026, the auditorium of Bad Aibling Gymnasium will transform into a literary resonance space for a theme that touches every biography: the relationship with the mother. Lena Gorelik will present her new novel All My Mothers and focus on love, doubt, expectations, and the contradictory forms of happiness.
A novel about the first great bond
Mothers often shape our thinking and feeling far beyond childhood. They remain present in our inner voices, accompany memories, and influence ideas of what a fulfilled life should look like. Gorelik's new novel artistically addresses this close, sometimes painful, and always multifaceted relationship.
At the center are questions that extend far beyond private family stories: How well do we know our own mother beyond her role? What expectations are associated with motherhood? And why is there such emotional and fundamental debate about hardly any other societal role?
Lena Gorelik's precise linguistic art
Lena Gorelik is one of the prominent voices in contemporary German literature. Her novels and essays combine personal experience with social analysis. In Who We Are, she addressed origins, migration, and identity; Wedding in Jerusalem was nominated for the German Book Prize, and More Black than Purple was nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize.
Her literary quality lies in a language that combines precise observation with emotional fluidity. Gorelik doesn't narrate distantly about social conflicts but makes it palpable how history, family, and present intertwine in individual life stories.
Reading atmosphere and author encounter
The reading promises an intense literary experience: a concentrated voice, precisely crafted sentences, and a topic that touches personal memories immediately within the audience. As part of the Bad Aibling Literature Days, the evening combines literary reflection with the unique closeness of an author encounter.
Gorelik's work opens a cultural discourse on care, female life plans, family influences, and the societal images of motherhood. The connection of narrative intimacy and essayistic sharpness makes All My Mothers a remarkable contribution to contemporary literature.
An award-winning author
Lena Gorelik was born in 1981 in St. Petersburg and moved to Germany in 1992 with her family. She is a writer, essayist, and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. For her literary and essayistic work, she has received several awards, including the Text & Language Literature Prize, the Marieluise-Fleißer Prize, the Heinrich Mann Prize, and in 2026, the Prize of the Literature Houses.
With All My Mothers, she presents a novel that connects private experience, societal debate, and linguistic artistry. The reading in Bad Aibling provides the opportunity to experience this new text in the immediate sound and thought atmosphere of a live event.
Conclusion: Literature that reaches into one’s own life
Visitors can expect a thoughtful, touching, and literarily ambitious evening about mothers, daughters, expectations, and the stories that shape families over generations. Those who want to experience contemporary literature with social relevance and personal depth will find an intense access to a theme that concerns us all at Lena Gorelik's reading.
Official channels of Lena Gorelik:
- Instagram: no official profile found
- Facebook: no official profile found
- Website: https://www.lenagorelik.de/
- Publisher: https://www.rowohlt.de/autorin/lena-gorelik-2032
