Sasja Filipenko

Sasja Filipenko (1984, Minsk) is a journalist, former TV presenter of a satirical program in Russia, screenwriter, and author of five novels. He is also a vocal opponent of both Lukashenko and Putin, and in both Belarus and Russia, he is persona non grata. Tirelessly, Filipenko travels throughout Europe to explain and provide background information on the situation in Belarus, which he closely follows. After a period of moving from one writing residency to another, he fortunately now has a residency permit in Switzerland for several years. In 2024, "Uitgewist" was published, translated from Russian by Arie van der Ent. In this novel, he intertwines past and present as a woman looks back on a life-changing decision she made during World War II, attempting to save her husband and father of her daughter from certain death in the Gulag.