Description

A maze-novel that simultaneously resembles Dante’s journey into hell, Odysseus’s voyage home, and a computer quest game where one must find a way out and survive. Through encounters with deceased friends and famous figures — Uldis Bērziņš and Aleś Rodzin, Andrei Bitov and Edvard Munch, Janka Bryl and James Joyce — the hero’s path in a mysterious time capsule will be winding, as he faces his own fears and seeks self-discovery.

Zmicier Višnioŭ is a poet, prose writer, artist, and publisher. One of the most influential figures on the independent cultural scene of Belarus, his prose texts, essays, and poems have become some of the most distinctive voices in contemporary national literature.

Višnioŭ’s texts evolve in a dynamic synthesis with other forms of his artistic expression. He is a co-founder of the legendary “Bum-Bam-Lit” movement, which in the 1990s sought to break the boundaries of literature and explored the fusion of various arts. This movement gave birth to, among others, the performance group “Special Brigade of African Brothers” led by Višnioŭ, which provoked the official cultural establishment with its radical actions, and the literary collective “Schmerzwerk,” which “inflicted pain” with its lyrical program. The participants of these projects were driven by a concern for the revival of language and art, and a desire to liberate them from the Soviet tradition.

He is the author of the books “Shtabkavy tamtam” (1998), “Tamburny maskit” (2001), “Trap for a Gopher, or a Necrophelic Study of One Species of Rodents” (2002), “Verification of Birth” (2005), “Pharaoh in the Zoo” (2007), “Castle Built of Nettles” (2010), “The Rustle of Beetles” (2011), “Drunken Longboats” (2014), “If You Look Closely — Mars is Blue” (2018). In 2014, the novel Das Brennesselhaus was published in Germany in German.

Višnioŭ’s literary work is closely accompanied by painting. His surreal, fairytale-like paintings have been exhibited in Belarus and abroad, including at Kunsthaus Tacheles (Berlin), the Museum of Non-conformist Art (Saint Petersburg), and recently at Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf.

In 2007, together with Michaś Bašura, Zmicier Višnioŭ founded the “Halijafy” publishing house, which primarily published Belarusian-language literature, focusing on debut works and forgotten classics of the last century. The publishing house’s activities and the sale of books in its own bookstore were banned by the regime in 2022. In the summer of 2022, Višnioŭ left Belarus and, due to threats, was unable to return. He currently lives in Germany.