Non-native: reversion

“Niatsutayshiya” (Not from here) is an anthology of Belarusian literature and art from the 1990s, an era of freedom, experimentation, and the breakdown of boundaries between genres. The book opens up the world of Boom-Bam-Lit and other creative movements where literature transformed into performance and art extended beyond text.

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For Belarusian literature, the 1990s were an era of liberation from the rigid corset of the Soviet literary tradition, which only allowed certain themes and forms. This transitional period was characterized by a vibrant diversity of new forms and unusual genre combinations; the boundaries between individual art forms, and even between art and everyday life, seemed to lose their clarity: literature transformed into performance, acquiring features of theatrical staging, only to burst into the measured life of a literary museum, for example, in the form of a coffin with a living poet inside.

The anthology for the first time presents the main groups of that period: "Boom-Bam-Lit" and the Society of Free Writers. The book provides a multifaceted understanding of the authors and their works, mini-dramas and performances, the destruction of aesthetic norms, and the innovative writing and staging strategies that developed in Belarus at that time.

The book is based on the concept of the play collection "Niatsutayshiya," which was prepared for publication in the late 1990s - early 2000s by members of the literary and artistic movement "Boom-Bam-Lit" but never saw the light of day.

The current edition contains, along with the plays from the collection, valuable additions: a study of Belarusian theater and performance art in an international context, creative manifestos, a chronicle of cultural life, commentaries from its active participants, photographs of literary, artistic, and theatrical actions, and other documents. The anthology is addressed to a wide audience: from specialists in contemporary art to amateurs interested in this topic.

According to Zmitser Vishniou, the relevance of the book lies primarily in the fact that it carries a charge of freedom, which is so lacking in today's Belarus.

The anthology was published in the THINKING ART series of the Center for Arts and Cultural Theory (ZKK) at the University of Zurich (UZH).

The book was published with the support of the Center for Arts and Cultural Theory at the University of Zurich.