29^th Leukerbad International Literary Festival

Authors

Meral Kureyshi

Switzerland

Born in Kosovo in 1983, Meral Kureyshi is considered one of the most important voices of contemporary Swiss literature. She came to Switzerland at the age of ten, studied literature and German language and literature, and now works as a freelance writer in Bern.
In her most recent novel, Im Meer waren wir nie (We Were Never in the Sea) Kureyshi tells the story of Lili, who lives in a retirement home, and the nameless first-person narrator who regularly visits and supports her. The narrator lives with Lili’s granddaughter and her eight-year-old son. Their story is about the fragility of ties, about letting go and starting over.
Meral Kureyshi’s style is distinctive. The rbb Kultur journalist Nadine Kreuzahler’s comments about Fünf Jahreszeiten (Five Seasons) also suit Kureyshi’s latest book: “Rather than developing a dramatic, chronological plot, the author lets her story stream in the current of the quotidian. Past and present, events and thoughts flow into each other.”
The scenes of daily life described by the author are not digressions: it’s precisely through these apparently minor details that the characters and their relationships become evident. A few sentences in this novel deserve entire pages. Many other sentences could also be highlighted for their density, pertinence, and truthfulness.

Im Meer waren wir nie. Novel. Limmat Verlag 2025
Fünf Jahreszeiten. Novel. Limmat Verlag 2020
Elefanten im Garten. Novel. Limmat Verlag 2015

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