Travel Prologue

EMPIRES FACING EACH OTHER: LITTLE GOLDEN AMERICA

with Felicitas Hoppe

Copresented with Goethe-Institut Los Angeles

In the 1930s, at the at the height of the Stalinist terror and the Great Depression, writer duo Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov were sent to America on behalf of the Russian newspaper Pravda. Under the title »Das eingeschossige Amerika« (literally, Single-Storied America; translated as Little Golden America), the two satirists’ travelogue is an independent minded, fascinating combination of words and pictures that reflects the tension between the USSR and the USA during the emergence of fascism in Europe.

Seventy years later, their steps are recounted by writer Felicitas Hoppe—together with visual artists Alexej Meschtschanow and Jana Müller, whom she met at the Villa Aurora. »Das eingeschossige Amerika«, published in German in 2011, by the Andere Bibliothek, with a foreword by Hoppe, shows the Russian duo’s original route and the traveling artists’ reexamination of the East-West relationship—now in light of current political developments.

Felicitas Hoppe (*1960, Hameln) is a writer living in Berlin. She is the author of Picknick der Friseure (1996), Pigafetta (1999), Paradiese, Übersee (2003), Verbrecher und Versager (2004), and Johanna (2006), among others, including Sieben Schätze and Abenteuer — Was ist das, two of her lectures on poetics. In 2011 Hoppe reinterpreted Grünes Ei mit Speck, a translation of texts by American children’s author Dr. Seuss. Her »dream biography« Hoppe, was published in 2012. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the aspekte Literature Prize (1996) and the Georg Büchner Prize (2012). Since 2007 she has been a member of the Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung. Felicitas Hoppe was a Villa Aurora fellow in 2012.

Jana Müller (*1977, Halle/Saale) lives and works in Berlin. She studied photography at the Academy of Visual Arts (HGB) in Leipzig with Timm Rautert . In her work, Jana Müller explores the concepts of memory and story-telling as well as cinematic topics. She met Felicitas Hoppe as a fellow at the Villa Aurora in 2012

Alexej Meschtschanow (*1973 in Kiev, Ukraine) to Russian parents, moved to Leipzig in 1984. After completing his high school degree at a school for children of Soviet officers stationed in East Germany, he gained various professional experiences. He finished his studies of the art of painting at the Academy of Visual Arts (HGB) in Leipzig in 1997 and received his Master of Fine Arts with Timm Rautert in 2008. Alexej met Felicitas Hoppe as a fellow at the Villa Aurora in 2012. He lives and works in Berlin.

Professor Dr. Ulrike Rainer, born in Vienna, has been a professor for German Language and Literature Studies and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire for thirty years. Ulrike Rainer is a genuine world traveler who speaks multiple languages. Aside from teaching and traveling she has written many essays about literature and about the cultural history of the US.

Location 
Villa Aurora, 520 Paseo Miramar, Los Angeles, CA 90272

Tickets
Tickets are FREE, however RSVP is required via infola@villa-aurora.org
Shuttle Service starts at 6:30 p.m. on the corner of Los Liones Drive and Sunset Blvd.