SKYPE MAMA

Within the series Hidden, Uprooted, Left Behind: Parental and Children’s Fates of Labor Migration, bi’bak invites the editor Lydia Nagel for a reading of her anthology Skype Mama. The reading is followed by discussion moderated by Esra Akkaya.

In eleven stories, which take place somewhere between Ukraine and the west of Europe, this book tells the fate of modern migrant workers. Most of the time it is a simple hardship which pushes them into the offices, kitchens and living rooms of the West. In Ukraine there are about one million families with at least one parent working abroad. Meanwhile, the children are left behind in Ukraine with the grandparents or other relatives. Can modern technology help to maintain the contact between family members? Or do programmes such as Skype fail to substitute physical closeness?

Skype Mama is a cooperative project of the association translit e.V. and the publishing house ist Wydawnyztwo Staroho Lewa, which appeared in 2013 in Ukraine and in Germany. The anthology contains eleven texts of renowned Ukrainian writers on the topic of labour migration and family.

With the support of Aktionsfonds des QM Soldiner Strasse in the frame of the programme Zukunftsinitiative Stadtteil, Soziale Stadt – Investition in die Zukunft.

Lydia Nagel (editor) studied Slavic studies and cultural sciences in Berlin, Belgrade and Moscow. She lives and works as a freelance translator in Berlin and translates from different slavic languages to German, especially contemporary prose and drama, often from Ukrainian writers. She is a founding member of translit e.V.