Alisha Gamisch: Parasiti

A letter causes an uproar in the lives of Rina, her aunt Valli, and her grandmother Lydia: Suddenly, the grandmother falls silent. Rina begins to ask questions – and, against all resistance, sparks a conversation between the generations. For she suspects that, from her family, she has inherited not only the angular figure and the fondness for evening soap operas, but also their fears and insecurities. Between Novosibirsk in the 1960s and the nearby present of Fürstenfeldbruck, Alisha Gamisch follows in her debut novel the life paths of three Russian-German women. Alisha Gamisch studied English and German studies in Munich and London and now lives in Berlin. Her first poetry collection Lustdorf (Verlagshaus Berlin, 2020) was chosen by the Haus für Poesie as one of the best poetry debuts of the year. In 2022, she received the Nora-Pfeffer Prize for Poetry from the Bavarian Cultural Center for Germans from Russia, and in 2023 she was a fellow at the Novel Workshop of the Literary Colloquium Berlin. She is a founding member of the feminist association 'Wepsert e.V.' as well as a co-curator and moderator of the reading and discussion series 'PostOst-Café' at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin. Since 2025, she has been part of the literary girl band 'No Scribes'. Parasiti is her debut novel. The reading will be moderated by literature house director Dr. Anton Knittel.