Bozena Badura. Expert in contemporary German literature
Bozena Badura has no memories of her first ever book. However, she has no doubts about when her passion for books began: “My first experiences of reading go back to my childhood and early youth, when I read all the way through the school library. At some point during my time in secondary school, I was even loaned books from the school librarian’s private collection,” she recalls. She was particularly fascinated by two works that left a long-lasting impression on her. She developed her passion for research mainly after reading the series of novels known as “Pan Samochodzik” by Zbigniew Nienacki published during the 1960s and 1970s, a kind of Polish version of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code”. In addition, her curiosity about the world was awakened by “Słoneczniki” by Halina Snopkiewicz: a coming-of-age novel written in diary form, which among other things was about a trip to Australia and the introduction to a foreign culture.
Bozena (Bożena) Anna Badura grew up between two cultures herself. She was born in 1978 in Tarnowskie Góry in the Polish voivodeship of Katowice (now the voivodeship of Silesia). The geopolitical changes that occurred in the region after the Second World War are responsible for her family’s close links to Germany. “After all, my grandparents, who were born as Germans, were among those who decided not to flee to the West,” she explains. “However, while we were very aware of our wider family’s German roots, German remained the secret language spoken only by my grandparents, and when they died at an early age, it initially disappeared from my life.”
In love with Goethe’s Faust
Bozena Badura learned German in her 8th year in school, and later at university. She first visited the country of her forebears in 2000, shortly before completing her bachelor’s degree. She still talks enthusiastically about this visit: “Even if I had problems with the language at first, I adored reading the works on the syllabus in the original German, and I immediately fell in love with Goethe’s ‘Faust I’, a text whose unique nature I was only really able to appreciate several years later after reading it multiple times.”
When in the summer of 2003, she came to Ludwigshafen for two semesters on the Erasmus programme, she was able to live out her passion for this language and its literature in her daily life for the first time. “My experience there changed my life: just two years later, I packed my few belongings and moved to Germany, right on time for the World Cup, with the aim of gaining my doctorate in German literature.”
No sooner said than done: in 2013, Bozena Badura was awarded her doctorate at the University of Mannheim with her thesis “Normalisierter Wahnsinn? Aspekte des Wahnsinns im Roman des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts” (“Normalised madness? Aspects of madness in the early 19th century novel”). In the years that followed, her reviews and contributions appeared in numerous publications. In her articles, she focused on historical and contemporary literature, mainly from Germany and Poland, and topics related to literary history.
During her early years in Germany, Bozena Badura did suffer one loss, however: “The first official German certificate was issued many years ago without a dot”, she explains, meaning the letter “ż” in the Polish spelling of her name. On her identity card, the dot had simply been omitted. “It wasn’t until I got married that an employee at the registry office noticed that there was a dot over the ‘z’ on my birth certificate.” Instead of changing all her documents, she decided to accept a change of name from Bożena to Bozena. “I pronounce my name in the Polish way, but for practical reasons, I leave out the dot.”
Literature on all levels
After spending time working at the University of Virginia in the US, Bozena Badura is now employed as a lecturer at the University of Duisburg-Essen. She is also often invited to join juries for literary prizes, such as the Literaturpreis Ruhr advancement award, or in 2023, the prestigious Dortmund Nelly-Sachs-Preis and the 2024 Hotlist literature prize. Literature bloggers and scriptwriters also know Bozena Badura through her collaborative project dasdebuet.com, which she has been running since 2014. In addition, she writes literary reviews, such as for literaturkritik.de. She also works to promote literature in her free time, for example as a member of the speakers’ council for the literaturgebiet.ruhr network, or on the board of the Literarische Gesellschaft Ruhr e. V. literary association.
She also regularly works as a moderator at events. Here, she says, she plays yet a different role. The moderator is not just there for the authors, but also for the event organisers and the public. This means that she needs to be aware of the needs of the audience and to bear in mind what the visitors might find interesting about the book being presented. “It’s also a privilege to be able to question the authors about their books and discuss their work with them.” For her, the best thing of all is the communication with the audience. “It’s great when you see the eyes of the people in the audience lighting up, or when you notice that they are starting to form their own ideas about what they are hearing.”
Laudatory speech for Saša Stanišić
Bozena Badura herself is happy that she has had the opportunity to moderate the book presentations of more than 70 inspiring authors, and that she has been able to meet so many more. For her, it is always a particular thrill when she gives a laudatory speech at an award ceremony. For example, she had the honour of giving a speech in praise of Saša Stanišić, who is one of her favourite authors. “It’s not just the big events, though, that make my calling such a pleasure. More than anything else, it is the many small experiences, such as the interesting discussions during and after a reading, the secrets that sometimes unintentionally come to light, and occasionally the very mundane everyday issues that remind you that at the end of the day, even highly successful writers are only human.”
Sebastian Garthoff, March 2025
Sources:
literaturwelten.com
dasdebuet.com
Personal conversation with Bozena Badura
