He can’t go home: a Belarusian author on lost roots and life in Switzerland
Sasha Filipenko, one of the most prominent Belarusian writers in exile, speaks to Swissinfo about freedom, fear, and the personal cost of truth-telling.
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He can’t go home: a Belarusian author on lost roots and life in Switzerland
In this new episode of On the Record, Sasha Filipenko talks about life under Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship, the political pressure that forced him to flee, and how his parents remain hostages in Belarus. Filipenko’s books are secretly passed from cell to cell in prisons, and Russia has added him to its wanted list.
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Filipenko is the author of several acclaimed novels that have been translated into dozens of languages. His work – as a writer, journalist and public speaker – resonates not only in Switzerland but across Europe. Filipenko speaks openly about depression, exile, and how he survives financially in Switzerland. He reflects on the emotional cost of writing, the power of literature to predict real life, and what it means to belong when your homeland calls you a criminal.
Filmed in Basel, this is an intimate conversation about resistance, dictatorship, and identity in times of war.
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