Slata Roschal was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in 1992 and moved to Germany in 1997. She studied Slavic, German, and comparative literature in Greifswald and earned her doctorate in Munich. She has received numerous work and residency grants and awards, including the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Literature Prize, the Free State of Bavaria Art Promotion Prize, and the Christine Literature Prize from BücherFrauen. Her most recent publications are the novel Ich möchte Wein trinken und auf das Ende der Welt warten (I Want to Drink Wine and Wait for the End of the World, 2024) and the poetry collection Ich brauche einen Waffenschein ein neues bitteres Parfüm ein Haus in dem mich keiner kennt (I Need a Gun License a New Bitter Perfume a House Where No One Knows Me, 2025).

“Images and videos are some what difficult for authors, but you could use the book covers, for example. I applied with a novel that is expected to be published by Ullstein/claassen in fall 2026. In Schöppingen, I want to work on the fine structure of the text before I send it to the editor. With this I want to combine a wide variety of genres and combine factual, commercial, and religious texts:

Lea Stein, an accountant and descendant of so-called quota refugees, travels to a job interview at a five-star hotel. Amid bizarre events involving Slavic cleaning ladies and German literary agents, she embarks on a search for her own social value. What does it mean when literature—in line with the hotel’s slogan “Every dish a poem, every poem a dish”—is elevated to a luxury good? To what extent can it still break down social classes? Why and according to what criteria do professions have different values? And what meaning can death still have today, in capitalism? The text focuses on various phenomena in the world of work that collide and are reduced to absurdity.”