Hanna: Now when I think about it, the attitude itself does not seem to have changed: I write books for all ages in the same way. It is me who changed – having gained new experience, new knowledge, and new writing skills. Initially, I came to Poland at the end of March 2021 – I was awarded a six-month “Gaude Polonia” scholarship, for which I had applied with a (still unfinished) novel.

My tutor was the Polish writer Julia Fiedorczuk, who enrolled me to the School of Ecopoetics run by the Institute of Reportage, which she had founded together with the journalist Filip Springer. The school organized lectures, seminars, discussions, and readings that embraced literary and studies, ecology, anthropology, philosophy, and other branches of knowledge, including natural sciences. Sometimes these events took place in rather unusual circumstances, for example, in Białowieża Forest or in Rogów Arboretum near Łódź.

Finding oneself in such an environment was a great luck and a privilege. Firstly, because most school participants paid a tuition fee.

Secondly, because I was the only foreigner there – to take up a course, you had to write in Polish, the school was not initially aimed at foreign students.

Thus, among other things learning helped me find a language to describe my experiences – for example, my long-lasting fascination with nature – to become aware of myself in this process. I read a lot of books, immersed myself in Polish literary life (as an observer and reader), going beyond the borders of the world I had been living in Belarus.

In a way, I got a very strong impulse, and when my scholarship ended, I had no idea where and how to keep on looking for information.

Hanna: And yet, as I have already said, the attitude to writing has not changed. From the very beginning, it was my way to interact with the world through words. In some sense, writing is also about the formation of a certain image of reality, which later begins to function on its own.

So, for example, when I wrote children's books in the series about Sprat the Cat, I pursued several goals. First of all, I wanted to create a story of Minsk with some specific easily recognizable places. I wanted my reader to pick up the book and walk around the city following it as if it were a map (it does contain one on the endpaper). I wanted Minsk to become a sort of “a book city” for kids, so that they know that miracles can happen on the streets they daily walk along.

Secondly, I dreamed of writing a book in Belarusian – a book that could be enjoyed even by those children whose families speak only Russian. I wanted them to develop the associative link “Minsk, the Belarusian language, adventures and friendship”. It is in such things that I see the sense of writing. And in the same way, I continued to write in Poland: before “Barren Time”, I had published here one book for children and a poetry collection “Constitution”.

But with “Barren Time” it was different. Initially, I was writing it exclusively for myself. On the one hand, I just documented the events, on the other – jotted down thoughts that were constantly popping up in my head. Most the texts you see in the book were written in the spring and summer of 2022 – a rather strange period when I had entire paragraphs appearing in front of me, and I felt the need to write them down in any, even most unfavorable, conditions. While doing it, it was as if I was looking at myself from the side – and it was those self-observations that I was also documenting right away.

In a sense, it was writing that preceded understanding, a kind of revelation. Once you had it fixed, you started seeing it. Perhaps it was really about an internal reconstruction of the image of the world and myself as its new part – a process that unfolded in a very concentrated way.

The world turned upside down, I had to understand where I belonged in it – who I eventually was. To start with the simplest, from the beginning.

I wanted my wording to be absolutely precise – crystal clear. And in this reflection, the tools I was given at the School of Ecopoetics came in very handy. Never before had I found myself in such a state. And never after…

Now I am already writing another book, and the work on it is going completely differently. I again set specific goals and think about the ways to achieve them.

Hanna: My first book for children was published in 2018, not so long ago. Before that, I had translated a lot of fiction (both poetry and prose) into Belarusian, writing articles and essays and defended my thesis on literary studies. The fact that I published a book for kids came as a surprise to me, it took me a while to get used to this idea. Before that I had never imagined myself as a writer.

Now, in retrospect, it looks as if it was about allowing myself to write. For many years, I had existed in the literary field, I had ambitions, but I did not believe that I had something significant to say. I was afraid of my own texts: I thought they were not good enough, or, rather, that I was not good enough in them. Perhaps this fear also had a gender dimension.

Writing a book for children was the first thing I allowed myself to do. Not because children's literature is somehow easier or worse than “adult” literature, but because in books for kids one feels it is easier to hide. Certainly, when writing for kids, you also reveal yourself, but given the way such literature functions, it is likely to be noticed by few.

To start writing not only for kids and, moreover, also get my texts published, I needed more courage and a certain anger at the world, because it is anger that what makes you very brave at the same time sharpening your feeling of love. The experience of the last three, even four years, undoubtedly added me both of these emotions. I realize that I am no longer afraid of my own texts. “Barren Time” did something to me – I rewrote myself in it. And now I trust myself.

But at the same time, I feel that the fairy tale remains my genre regardless of what I write. A fairy tale – something fictional, fantastic, magical – helps to establish a distance, to create a “neutral strip” between oneself and the world. And it is in this neutral zone where a lot of things occur – emotions turn into images, new meanings appear. Thus, it seems to me that there is always a good time for fairy tales, it is a very archaic and still valid way of coming to terms with the world.

Hanna: I was born in the Soviet Union, but I still feel that “secondhand time” is no longer about me.

I went to school in the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, the language of tuition was Belarusian – so we had all the subjects taught in it. At the same time, I cannot say that my Belarusian identity was formed back then, because my language situation was somewhat crazy.

First, the Belarusian language: at school, on the radio, on television and in books. Secondly, Polish (because I was born in Hrodna, not far from the Belarusian-Polish border) we watched Polish films and I understood Polish since childhood. However, until a certain age, probably until high school, I had never met a Belarusian- or Polish-speaking person in real life. Thirdly, everyone in my circle spoke Russian, even both my grandmothers, because they lived in the city. Even my Belarusian language teacher spoke Russian during breaks. It was such a weird “Belarusian identity”, where Belarusian was present primarily as something symbolic.

moreover, back then, in my school, it was embarrassing to define oneself as Belarusian. in “Barren Time” I eventually explain why I am glad to be Belarusian and how valuable this experience of realizing my own national belonging is for me. the layer between “secondhand time” and “barren time” probably would look like this.

Hanna: Our current situation could be described as a situation of active colonization. We are inside this very process – where the neighboring state of Russia spends enormous resources to ensure that we become part of it or at least do not leave its sphere of influence. To control that our further development follows the trajectory Russia has determined. The destruction of the Belarusian language and culture, which is now unfolding in Belarus, is at least not without the participation of Russia.

The amount of resources Russia is ready to spend on the colonization of the neighboring nations is illustrated, for example, by the war against Ukraine. Neither we personally, nor our various communities, nor even the Republic of Belarus as a country currently have comparable resources to stop this colonization. And I dream of the times when the situation will change and we will have enough forces to break free from this colonization and finally deal with our own post-colonial problems.

I don’t know if this is possible in my lifetime, but speaking of hope, I still have enough strength to move on, even without this assurance.

Hanna: I'm afraid I won't give a comforting answer to this question, because I don't know of such means that would make people start listening to others or teach them empathy – unless they themselves want it.

I believe we can only listen ourselves, try at least not to lose our own empathy and search for something very important on our own, rejoicing if someone decides to join us along the way.

And for me that would already be enough.

Hanna: And that's why, on returning home, I would first of all look at what has grown in the flower bed in front of my window. I would approach the mini-ecosystem created there with great caution, attempting to figure out what kind of wild plants had settled on the flowerbed. It is important to have many wild plants in the city because birds and insects need them.

Perhaps something had been planted there without me, some seeds could have been brought by the wind from other flower beds. And I hope that some of the plants I had once taken care of survived, for example, hydrangea and boxwood – my “memory plants”. After all, flora can also be associated with memory: when my grandmother died, I really wanted to absorb her memory, to take all her plants. But it was impossible, and now only some memory fragments are left.

moreover, I would like to preserve plants of relationships - to exchange seedlings with relatives, friends and neighbors and then know what I got from whom.

In my flowerbed, i would also grow edible plants to have contact with what I cook and eat - unfortunately, so far impossible in Minsk, because there is a road and a parking lot next to my yard, and cigarette butts are sometimes thrown onto it from the balconies, poisoning the soil.

But if one day I have a more secluded plot of land, I would definitely grow arugula, marigolds, and nettles.

• Arugula is a versatile vegetable for salads, in our region it feels like a guest, because its homeland is the Mediterranean.

• Marigold is a late summer flower, there were a lot of them in my childhood, but then we didn't know that their petals can be added to salad and brewed like tea – it turns out to be of an unusual sharp yellow color.

• The nettle, hopefully, would grow among my flowerbeds by itself, because it is a plant that feels good living next to people. If you see nettle in the forest, it means that people used to live around. My family makes spring soup from young nettle.

For now, I am living among the plants of Warsaw and other cities I visit surprised by the beauty of magnolias in the botanical garden in Powsyn near Warsaw, a tulip tree in Krasinski Park and a mulberry tree on Bagatelli Street.