What did the disintegration of the Soviet Union feel like for the people who lived through it? Prize-winning author Sasha Salzmann renders a complex story exploring how a nation and its citizens can survive and thrive in the wake of corruption and near-constant upheaval in Glorious People.

For Lena, whose corner of the USSR is now Ukraine, the only way to get by is through patronage and corruption. For Tatjana, the first ever McDonald’s in the Soviet Union has just opened, but there’s no food in the shops and a new mouth to feed on the way. Confronted with the question of whether to stay or go, both women strike out West and find their lives and the lives of their daughters intertwining in unexpected ways.

Salzmann’s latest offers a vivid depiction of the ordinary lives that are impacted by extraordinary events and confronts feelings of displacement, disconnection, and distance from the people you love and the land you once called ‘home’.

Together with moderator Conor Daly, they’ll discuss emigration, dislocation, and the search for cultural identity faced by many children whose parents made the decision to leave their homelands.

Sasha Salzmann is an award-winning playwright, essayist, curator, and co-founder of the culture magazine Freitext and their work has been translated and performed in over 20 countries. Glorious People was longlisted for the German Book Prize 2021. In 2022, Salzmann received the prestigious Hermann-Hesse-Literaturpreis and the Preis der Literaturhäuser.

Presented in partnership with the Centre for Resistance Studies and the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute, Trinity College Dublin and Goethe-Institut Irland.