Shida Bazyar

Shida Bazyar reads from her new novel "Die Lücken" (Kiepenheuer & Witsch).

Hemesbach in the Hunsrück is a fictional place where 90 years of German history have taken root in its walls and biographies - a community that actively conceals its past while simultaneously becoming a refuge for all who seek shelter here. The novel moves through decades and the minds of those who shaped the village: Jewish families who lost everything; Nazi profiteers who reinvented themselves as innocent bystanders; and the Sharifi and Karimpour families, who flee Iran decades later. Lena Gorelik describes the book as "a magical tangle of times and figures that Shida Bazyar layers so cleverly, so ingeniously one upon another and intertwines, until we as readers find ourselves in the very middle". The novel stays close to its people, their emotions and motivations, while radically exposing the unresolved Nazi past beneath the post-migrant present.

Bazyar's acclaimed debut "Nachts ist es leise in Teheran" appeared on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize in 2026; "Drei Kameradinnen" was nominated for the German Book Prize in 2021, was adapted for theatre, and was recently adapted into a film.

Moderation: Lara Sielmann. With kind support from the Ilse and Dr. Horst Rusch Foundation.