welcome to arts twenty one today we check out the life sequel there. is just. the event is held every spring it is really popular with the reading public because it would simply takes a lot of walking around to see and do everything but it's all really interesting. and there is celebrated writers lots of new releases in great literature from a mid-sized country the czech republic is the twenty one thousand likes the book fairs country of honor just good luck i think it's great that people can discover all kinds of books here but they may not be familiar with. so let's get lost in good books but first a brief review of the state of publishing. no signs of gloom and doom at the lips of book for despite the fact that a major german book wholesaler recently the clear bankruptcy turned over stagnant but this time the book fairs bigger and more international than ever. canada's making its debut here with publishers from across the country and they've brought along books in a wide variety of genres. the first time here i am so i think i like to think is open to public so it's interesting to get to me that there are readers i think it's also the place where. the new book are really every year so it's good to be there and to feel the trend. readers can meet their favorite authors and then like in frankfurt stock up on books. this publishers trying to attract young readers with a selfie competition. on a more serious note this year's book fair focuses on south eastern europe and the erosion of democracy and freedom of speech. germany's federal agency for civic education is sponsoring a series of discussions and book readings thirty years of change and young people then and now. a student you can mention do you know what's happening with young people the ones who were born after nine hundred eighty nine who have no historical reference points except perhaps through their parents' generation are they rebellious how are they dealing with responsibility. what are they thinking and feeling and what does europe mean to them and the best that it is the only hope but . many of the new books at the fair deal with the story of events and focus on contemporary issues the event offers a number of discussions with authors and experts. on the hot topic is the future of the book publishing industry itself. facing stiff competition from e-books books and demand and self published money scripts there's been a prize for the best self published book since two thousand and seventeen last year monica from our won the prize for story. nobody wanted to publish it but now it's proving popular for bar says self publishing offers a number of advantages. to me says i'm in china as i speak and one major factor is the wide variety of topics that you can find in these kinds of books and that includes all sorts of marginal subjects that are just as important but don't appeal to the mainstream publishers emmy's in. life i don't know for example in my book i addressed the issue of sexual harassment. my ex and ability but i think it's extremely important to have a platform to initiate discussion doesn't it discuss you want. the logic fair shows that books and readers do still exist a recent study indicates that fewer people are buying books these days but those who do buy more from. one of the stars of this year's event is the outspoken russian american journalist and activist mushing gessen she has been awarded the twenty nine thousand leipsic book fair award for european understanding. these days people are lining up to interview matia gessen the younger of the award winning work the future of his history how totalitarianism reclaimed russia. it makes a provocative claim. russia's future is shaped by its past and you might say that about any country but what i mean specifically about russia is that. the seventy four years of to tell a tyrant ism shaped an entirely different society than what we have seen elsewhere in the world russia has not told and his story about its history and specifically the history of stalinist terror. stalin ruled the soviet union with an iron fist until one nine hundred fifty three but even today the dictator is celebrated as the one who helped defeat hitler stalin dreamed of a mighty empire but millions of russians lost their lives as a result something that often goes unmentioned. and so it's very hard to tell a story about it but without a story a society is unable to move forward so the future is history both in the sense that it's determined by history and that it's. it's a history that hasn't been told and also in english the future is history also means the future has gone. to change russia. presents itself as a modern country to the outside world yet the nation is deeply divided for her book marsha gessen conducted interviews with russian men and women who were born in the one nine hundred eighty s. and lived with an inner turmoil to this day. i wanted to look at that generation i wanted to look at people who grew up in the ninety's because i think it's a very specific condition that hasn't been described that the condition of being a child in an extremely unstable society they need to remember the collapse of the sage and when they were just seven years old they needed to be from different backgrounds from different cities but also different class backgrounds with a different relationship to power i want to use them in the sense as a vehicle to understanding some of the politics both of the perestroika era and of the ninety's i. guess since family immigrated to the u.s. from the soviet union in the one nine hundred eighty s. jewish intellectuals who saw no future there musher was fourteen at the time ten years later she returned to moscow to work as a journalist. and the first time i went back to the soviet union was in march one thousand nine hundred one. one there were demonstrations in the streets of this giant inspiration about three hundred thousand people people were talking. old important things there was actually politics happening people were talking about what the relationship between the individual and the state should be people were talking about how the government and society should be constitutes. an era of huge change the soviet union was coming to an end russia was about to embark on a new era with new leadership. for journalists and i think a person there's nothing more exciting than being. able to witness that up close so i you know i was i was i was so drawn to that that i just wanted to stay and keep writing that story and for most of the ninety's i did for most of the ninety's i felt that every story route was a new story no one had written before i mean that's that's an amazing thing for a journalist experience. then after a tumultuous decade president yeltsin presented ex k.g.b. officer vladimir putin as the country's new prime minister he vowed to return russia to its former greatness critics were silenced in two thousand and eleven when thousands protested against an allegedly rigged parliamentary election musher gessen was out on the front lines and had to leave russia as a result i think it was my participation in the protests. and my being very out as a queer person i had been publicly out for many many years. and it had never been a problem until the kremlin launched its anti-gay campaign in two thousand and twelve. and then it suddenly became a problem and the reason i had to leave was because my family was directly threatened with the removal of my oldest son who was adopted from the family in two thousand and thirteen matia guess and her partner and their three children relocated to new york since then she has spoken out publicly about putin's hunger for power and the irony of history that the us is now governed by a president who sees himself as a friend of putin however i mean there is no comparison right russia is opposed to tell a country and the united states is is a weak and dysfunctional democracy those are vastly different systems. thank you since book focuses on russia under putin. it pulls no punches and now it is one of the twenty one thousand lights bookfair award for european understand thank you. twenty one thousand is the year of big anniversaries many are being celebrated in new books we turn the spotlight on three of our favorites. encounters with wild animals and exciting climbs up the sides of volcanoes it's all in a new illustrated account of alexander for home bold south american expedition. author and revulse book marks the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of germany's famous geographer and naturalist and explorer the book was inspired by humboldt plant samples sketches and newly released passages from his daily journal. it was an amazing journey full of adventures and new discoveries. descriptions of his encounters with indigenous peoples are both vivid and moving. kobold described the impact humans were already having on the environment and condemned slavery in cuba. really unmeasured provided the rich and detailed illustrations for folse new book. the iconic painting mona lisa remains a mystery to this day the artist leonardo da vinci died in fifteen nineteen. and has written a new biography of devinsky describing him as a universal genius and an early supporter of women's emancipation. fallon says davinci portrayed women who were intelligent and strong willed. for example ginevra dimension the fifteenth century intellectual. or this painting love benefit when you're often called portrait of an unknown woman both proud and self-confident. holland's book portrays a uniquely talented artist who broke with tradition and developed new perspectives on women fought and the world in general. on july twentieth one thousand nine hundred sixty nine astronauts landed on the moon for the first time. and it was a worldwide media sensation. to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the event a new book on the history of nasa the u.s. space agency has hit the shelves it's called the nesa archives sixty years in space written by a british science journalist and space historian peers because owning. it includes hundreds of photographs and rare documents from nasa is archives. the lavishly illustrated volume outlines the key role the u.s. space program plays in space technology. no nasa plans to send astronauts to mars perhaps as early as twenty thirty three. the nasa archives sixty years in space is a breathtaking trip through time and space. this year's country of honor is the czech republic and the czechs have brought a lot of fine work along with them we talked to four featured writers before the big event. a majestic castle narrow alleyways numerous domes and towers and impressive bridges spanning the whole top of. prague is a jewel with a millennium of history a city on the move in central europe. the true steps of the communist era is history now prague is a popular destination for tourists from across the globe. to raise a small tumble of our lives here the writer observes the hustle and bustle and the czech capital from an amused distance. as paul and i was first go to get over. it but it could have been a. host but as obama. is lucky. yassin . broke that he. must have been moved. to raise a similar to move on her living as a translator her first novel is the story of a young woman who's tried and failed to fit in once too often. hurt and disappointed she makes the radical decision to move into an old cupboard left in the courtyard. she come to buy. by there she could live with other people with her sister her girlfriend her family and. withdraw out on me but she doesn't want to be there and deal with other people. the movie because she needs to deal with herself like. a hundred. the same time she's somehow incapable of taking action and can't afford her own apartment so the coverage gives her a bit of freedom in this provisional situation by hiding in their droves auditions it throughout so. she feels lost in a way which could perhaps only happen in the success driven and consumer oriented western world it's a story that's as honest as it is absurd. the one constant in the young protagonists life is a friendly vietnamese and he lets her use the washroom in a shop and gives her a smile and something to eat. this is more than a mere detail it's a new. to multiculturalism at a time when czech politicians often disparage the countries to be the means minority. is the czech republic xenophobia. in twenty fifteen at the height of europe's refugee crisis the country accepted under two hundred people for my not going about doing this for my generation it's extremely painful to hear that the czech republic refused to accept refugees. i didn't refuse to the government refused to i myself helped refugees he said so had the food thing and go hard for me when i drove to hungary and took a good look at the situation. and i formed my own opinion about who gave marked she says of course people in the czech republic appreciate the material freedoms the opportunities to travel that they have now but she says many people's mindsets are slower to change some feel insecure and don't know how to handle freedom. does that worry her not in the least. to be mentioned. i think people can see for themselves if they've elected the wrong politician. the elan the title as time goes on they notice ok maybe that wasn't so great. and that's progress mind sometimes you have to try things out before you realize that's a bad apple i won't use one of those again so take me call from. prague castle is the city's landmark and houses the office of the czech president. current president me last three months pro china and probably russia's stance has divided the country. in the ukraine conflict he sided with russia. in two thousand and fifteen he called the wave of refugees flooding into europe and organized invasion . and was shocked when someone was elected president he'd always fought for a truly free country both before nine hundred eighty nine and after as a writer journalist and since twenty a lot. as program director of the votes love hava library. petition history is like a huge pendulum swing with its one as high to one side as possible now it's right at the bottom but i hope we'll reach the other side again. what's left of it was czechoslovakia the last president and the first president of the czech republic after slovakia succeeded in one thousand nine hundred three a former dissident hovel was also a celebrated writer and a moral authority. he personally brought yosh in total to the bottom up of a library shortly before his death and twenty eleven. total stayed on and continues to cure rate the library's cultural program as humble would have wanted. and he's kept on writing unusual novels his latest a sensitive person starts out as a road movie about a family of artists but soon turns into a commentary on modern european society question out of you know. if this strange family is led by a father who's around my age. he still has this desire to discover western europe. into what his europe this mental image that he has no longer exists for his million or. instead he encounters an unfriendly europe full of social tension plagued by crises and with the poor kids of migrants walking around you that. no one of those oh. so he returns to his homeland with all of its awful scrap yards and bars it might not be the prettiest but at least it's good for the novel and topple the state award for literature in twenty seventeen had much public criticism. for august booming and now was among the ten richest regions in europe the days when people here fought for socialism with a human face a long time. it's easier to imagine franz kafka walking through the city's alleyways at the start of the twentieth century back then prague was a magnet for artists and authors writing in check and german as the city was still a part of the hapsburg empire. and others yes everything's also nice looking so picturesque in the home but underneath the surface there are a few graves a few bodies lying buried on top of one another. and we have to live with these corpses these ghosts of the past in the hilly. yourself the british study czech history and says to do that you need to know german otherwise he'd never have been able to conduct the research for his novel into vats of that stuff or vinterberg last journey it's a comical tribute to train travel central europe and life in general and rudisha wrote it in german. the month's issue. when you look at the map of the railway routes in austria hungary in one nine hundred thirteen and compare it with a map of the routes in central europe today you can see how many are left hold this for what is it i'm told that's all of these routes this station where we are now and they all existed back then as in this caption damaso alice. together with his melancholy geriatric nurse john kraus ninety nine year old once a winter buried in parks on a journey into the past taking his cue from a detail guidebook dating from one thousand nine hundred eighteen he's drawn ever deeper into the country's history and his on. the outskirts of from talking to some little nonstandard afzal assumes that i owned a game with czechoslovakia and stuff. on stuart's also some bloke months and one guy says. only a scot only storks also some good ones and only after the field since he was a communist and common. nonsense one of the expedition was the soviet. no it's not the form which the leader stands for towards folks it's like. winter bird meanders through the course of history bringing the past to life in spite of these often sad events it's a sheer delight to be along for the ride. and burn a three hour train trip from prague people of but also reconciling the past helped along by cutting up to cause book expulsion the british near. the bus so need to sift through the dipsy couple drop it over stuff get them just come in that's good we call it it's going to. live on a high you. get a could be a body in a hole it's not nice and who develops an ash at the wall. in supposed. to just adjust or just no support be it i see days deflection that's just the globe and you push i'd never get. burned i was the second largest city in the czech republic in one nine hundred ten it had one hundred twenty thousand residents eighty thousand spoke german as their mother tongue the rest were czechs they lived peacefully with one another until the nazis marched in. around eleven thousand jews from burnell fell victim to the nazis and countless opponents of hitler's regime were tortured and executed. when i moved to my first flat then i every morning or every day around the side which is on the old. medhi should glass and to go in the street and the because i didn't know i think abode the. german presence in my city i started to get interest in this steel industry and what happened to the other germans are better and the more. began researching. and soon discovered that this was a taboo subject in one nine hundred forty five almost three million people most of the german population were driven out of the then czechoslovakia in bernal their expulsion was particularly violent during a death march as many as five thousand people lost their lives women children. and the elderly. spoke with a few of the survivors thanks to them i saw the history of chick history from absolutely a different perspective and that's why i also found out that the during our education and i mean educational for all children into a couple of the there was some by and by be switchable and discussed with also the board and. i had story right there voted. the expulsion of. is a moving novel that's chock full of facts that's received a lot of attention in the czech media burnell has been finding ways to remember the victims of the death march since one thousand nine hundred five and twenty fifteen the city issued a public apology. was novel is an uncomfortable read but like so many new books from the czech republic it's well worth the effort. and. that's all from arts twenty one this time so until we meet again why not curl up with a good book and until then our futures in from life six. and again when a. woman is exists and. it's . a turtle a mission into the visual world of the great and down. from call. it twenty. this multimedia exhibition chorus brings the arsonists masterpieces to life . and symphony of light color and sound. the moment next on. golf marks even as a child we had just won the gold rush was like oh coach a soccer player becoming a professional soccer player coach. and joshua thomas sergeant system is emerging as a major challenge to insurance companies. who took a look around st louis good joshua to play for. sixty minutes of. sleep. carefully.