Jehona Kicaj "ë"

The unusual title "ë" refers to a letter that plays an important role in Albanian, even though it is almost never pronounced. The narrator, a child of refugees from Kosovo, grows up in Germany - attending kindergarten, school, and university - searching for language and understanding, yet constantly running into stereotypes, ignorance, and indifference. She experiences the Kosovo War of the late 1990s from a safe distance; but even in the diaspora, war and death are present, just in a different form.

The novel draws attention to the suffering caused by the Kosovo War, which is barely known in Germany: families who lost their homes, murdered relatives buried anonymously, still missing or unidentified to this day. Jehona Kicaj gives voice to a past that is literally embedded in every fibre of the body and therefore cannot simply fade away.

Jehona Kicaj was born in 1991 in Kosovo and grew up in Göttingen. She studied philosophy, German studies, and modern German literature in Hannover. Since 2020 she has published both academic and literary texts; she is co-editor of the anthology "'Und so blieb man eben für immer'. Gastarbeiter:innen und ihre Kinder" (2023). Her debut novel "ë" has received multiple awards and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize 2025.

The event is organised in cooperation between Stadtbücherei Löhne, the vhs, and the Migrationsbüro of the city of Löhne. Tickets are available online at www.reservix.de, at the door, and in advance at Stadtbücherei Löhne, vhs Löhne, and authorised ticket outlets.