WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE’s READING SEPTEMBER 8, 2019
KATHERINE BRABON (AUSTRALIA), KAMEL DAOUD (ALGERIA), MOHAMED HASHEM (EGYPT), GABRIELLA ZALAPI (SWITZERLAND/ITALY)
1. Katherine Brabon is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. Her debut novel The Memory Artist won the 2016 Vogel Literary Award. Katherine holds a Doctorate in writing and literature from Monash University and a Master's in history from the University of Oxford. She is also a regular contributor to Melbourne's Lindsay magazine. She reads from her novel "The Memory Artist" (Allen & Unwin).
2. Kamel Daoud is an Algerian author and journalist who writes in French. His novel Meursault contre-enquête (Barzakh, 2013), received the Prix Goncourt for First Novel (2015), his second novel, Zabor ou Les Psaumes (Barzakh, 2017), received the 2018 Prix Méditerranée. Since January 2019, he is the first writer to hold a newly created chair in creative writing at The Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris. He reads from a work in progress inspired by Raymond Depardon's photographs taken in 1962 during "Les Accords d'Evian" (the negotiations for the independence of Algeria).
3. Mohamed Hashem is Egyptian. He is the founder of Merit Publishing House (one of the most important in the Arab world – the first to publish The Yacoubian Building). He received the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish award in 2006, and in 2011 the Herman Kesten Award from the German PEN. His first novel Open Playgrounds was published in 2004. He reads in Arabic from his memoir (work in progress) - English translation of the extract by Dr. Amahmoud T. Elkhafif and read by Katherine Brabon.
4. Gabriella Zalapì is an Italian-Swiss artist who probes the construction of identity and the role played by memory in its process. She uses material such as family photographs, archive images, and administrative documents as integral sources in her writings, paintings and drawings. Her novel Antonia. Journal 1965-1966 was published to critical acclaim (Zoé, 2019). She reads from her novel "Antonia, Journal 1965 - 1966" and presents a short movie she directed about the novel.
WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE’s READING AUGUST 11, 2019
LAURENCE BOISSIER (SWITZERLAND), LUCIANA CISBANI (ITALY), YULIA LATYNINA (RUSSIE), JULIEN THEVES (FRANCE)
1. Laurence Boissier est suissesse et vit à Genève. Elle est l'auteure de plusieurs collections de textes courts (Cahier des charges, 2012, ed. d'autre part, Inventaire des lieux, 2016 et Safari, 2019, ed. art&fiction) et d'un roman (Rentrée des classes, 2018, ed. art&fiction). Elle fait également partie du collectif d'auteurs et de musiciens Bern ist Uberall qui pratique le spoken word. Elle lit des extraits de son dernier recueil "Safari" publié conjointement et en version bilingue aux éditions art&fiction / der gesunde menschen versand (2019)
2. Luciana Cisbani est italienne et traductrice littéraire depuis presque 25 ans. Après une thèse sur l’argot, elle a travaillé dans l’édition comme lexicographe de dictionnaires bilingues et comme rédactrice. Professeur de traduction à la Civica Scuola Interpreti-Traduttori de Milan et d’italien L2 à l’université Milan-Bicocca, elle anime les ateliers ViceVersa français-italien pour traducteurs professionnels. Elle lit en français des extraits de deux auteurs qu'elle traduit en italien : Philippe Rahmy "Pardon pour l'Amérique" (pas encore traduit) et Pascale Kramer "La brutalité du réveil" (en cours de traduction)
3. Yulia Latynina est une écrivaine et journaliste russe, critique farouche du régime de Poutine. Elle a dû fuir la Russie à cause de menaces répétées et d’actes de violences à son encontre, mais continue à animer son émission sur la dernière chaîne indépendante et influente, Radio Echo de Moscou. Chroniqueuse pour un grand journal de l’opposition, elle est l’auteur d’une vingtaine de best-sellers et a reçu de nombreux prix, notamment d’Allemagne, d’Italie et des États-Unis. Ses romans sont publiés en français chez Actes Sud. Elle lit la traduction anglaise de la préface de son essai sur les origines du christianisme "Jesus. Historical Investigation" ( "Иисус. Историческое расследование" publié en 2018)
4. Julien Thèves est français. Il a publié en 2018 Le Pays d’où l’on ne revient jamais (Christophe Lucquin Éditeur) pour lequel il a reçu le prix Marguerite-Duras. Avant cela, ses textes ont été diffusés sur France Culture, adaptés au cinéma ou publiés en revue. Il est aussi l’auteur de Précarité et Son histoire, parus en 1999 et 2000 aux éditions Balland. Il lit un extrait de son dernier roman "Le pays d'où l'on ne revient jamais" (Christophe Lucquin Editeur 2018) et un extrait d'un nouveau texte à paraître "La ville singulière"
MEETING WITH Russian WRITER and journalist
YULIA LATYNINA - JUly 19, 2019
Writers at risk program 2019
Born in Moscow in 1966, Yulia Latynina is a Russian writer, economic journalist, television presenter and radio host, known for her opposition to Putin and her outspokenness. On September 10, 2017, she announced on Twitter that she was forced to flee Russia because she was fearing of her life. She has been living in exile ever since. Her decision to leave her home country came after a series of incidents and attacks becoming more and more serious that she faced for nearly a decade. Yulia Latynina is a prolific writer of crime novels and economic thrillers. In recent years she has also made herself known for her hard-hitting journalism, with strong and sometimes controversial opinions. She has published 23 novels since the early 1990s while developing an impressive media career spanning the fields of economics and political corruption. She began her work as a journalist in 1995, as an economic columnist for the newspaper Segodnya. She has written for the daily Izvestiya, the magazine Expert, the monthly Sovershenno Secretno and the weekly Ezhenedelny Zhurnal. She regularly hosts a program on Radio Ekho Moskvy, and since 2001 has also been a columnist for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The importance of Latynina's work has been recognized in her country and abroad and she has received numerous awards: in 1998, she received the Alexander II Prize "for her great personal contribution to the defense of economic freedom in Russia "; in 1999, she was named Personality of the Year by the Russian Biographical Institute for her contribution to economic journalism; in 2004, she received the Gerd Bucerius Prize for Young Eastern European Press; in 2007, she received the Maria Grazia Cutuli Prize for investigative journalism; and in 2008, she received the US State Department's Defenders of Freedom Award. Her first novels appeared in Russia under the pseudonym of Yevgeny Klimovich.
Moderator: Professeur Georges Nivat.
Born in 1935 in Clermont-Ferrand, an honorary professor at the University of Geneva, Georges Nivat is a Slavist and historian of ideas. Former director of the European Institute of the University of Geneva, he chaired Les Rencontres internationales de Genève from 1996 to 2008. Georges Nivat is the author of many books, among which a large trilogy that punctuates his studies and reflections on the Russian culture. Part of his work is dedicated to Russian symbolism. He is also very interested in works of Russian moral resistance - usually referred to as "dissent" - and especially in Solzhenitsyn. He works regularly for the Fayard publishing house where he has published important contemporary Russian authors, including two former residents at Chateau de Lavigny, Mark Kharitonov and Mikhail Shishkin. Georges Nivat also co-directed with Efim Etkind, Vittorio Strada and Ilya Serman the publication of the monumental History of Russian Literature, published by Fayard.
Meeting in English and French
WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE’s READING JULY 14, 2019
VOLHA HAPEYEVA (BELARUS), T.D. MITCHELL (USA),MICHA VENAILLE (FRANCE)
1. Volha Hapeyeva (Belarus) is an award-winning Belarusian poet, writer, translator and linguist whose work has been translated into more than 10 languages. She has published five poetry collections, two children’s books and one book of prose, and collaborates with electronic musicians and visual artists to create audio-visual performances. She reads from her collection of poems in Belarus, followed by its French translation (French translations by Uladz Harbacki read by Sophie Kandaouroff) and some new work in the English translation (English translations by Annie Rutherford and Kim Moore).
2. T.D. MItchell (USA) is a playwright, screenwriter and speechwriter. Her work is deep-research-based, tackling large, intersectional issues including those of gender, cultural dissonance, moral injury and military aggression, but through intimate, often familial contexts. Currently, she is working on a play about American feminist identity in the face of the Syrian refugee crisis. She reads from her new play "The double".
3. Micha Venaille (France) is a literary translator, journalist and critic. In her translation work, she enters into an intimate dialogue with books and their authors as she carries texts over into another language. Her choice of translations from English reflect authors she is passionate about: Vita Sackville-West, All Passion Spent, the extraordinarily Leonard Woolf’s autobiography and The Letter of Virginia Woolf. She reads from her translation of Virginia Woolf's and from her new translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's "The dark interval - Letter for the grieving heart".
RENCONTRE WITH MOHAMED HASHEM:
JUNE 30, 2019
Meeting with Mohamed Hashem, the Egyptian writer and publisher who many see as the soul of the Egyptian revolution of 2011.
An account on the current political situation in Egypt, and on the role and the state of contemporary Arab literature and more particularly Egyptian.
Mohamed Hashem (1958) is the founder of the publishing house Dar Merit, one of the most famous in Cairo or even Egypt. In the 1990s, it became the culmination of a thriving Egyptian literature, and enjoyed success with, among other things, the first publications of Alaa al-Aswany's novel “The Yacoubian Building” and “Being Abbas El-Abd” by Ahmed Alaidy. During the Arab Spring, the publishing house, located a few hundred meters from Tahrir Square, became the meeting place of the protesting youth who met there to discuss each night. They were all welcomed and supported by Mohamed Hashem. Today, he continues to fight to publish the literary vanguard and defend the freedom of expression in his country, despite the regular threats of closure and arrest by the Egyptian authorities.
Moderation and translator Nora Amin.
Writer, choreographer and Egyptian theater director, Nora Amin has published four novels and four collections of short stories, and staged some forty theater- and dance performances in Egypt and abroad. Her work is characterized by a very explicit socio-political activism, especially for the defense of women's rights in the Arab world, against patriarchy, authoritarianism, sexism and racism. She currently lives in Berlin.A meeting with Mohamed Hashem, a democracy activist, writer, publisher and founder of the Merit Publishing House, which first produced works like “The Yacoubian Building,” by Alaa al-Aswany. He is considered by many as the soul of the Egyptian revolution of 2011.
In Arabic, translation in English
WRITERS-IN-RESIDENCE’s READING JUNE 16, 2019
VEDRAN HUSIć (USA/BORSNIA AND HerzEgovinA), GERTRAUD KLEMM (AUSTRIA), JEAN-BAPTISTE PARA (FRANCE), YVONNE REDDICK (UK), PETER STAMM (SWITZERLAND)
1. Born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vedran Husić was raised in Germany and the US. His collection of stories, Basements and Other Museums, won the St. Lawrence Book Award in 2018. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the National Endowment for the Arts. Vedran Husic reads from his collection "Basements and Other Museums: stories" (Black Lawrence Press, 2018)
2. Gertraud Klemm was born in 1971 in Vienna. She worked as a biologist before she started writing. Several literary prizes (e.g. Public’s Choice Award of the Ingeborg Bachmann competition 2014, shortlist European Union Prize for Literature 2015) and scholarships. Recent books: Hippocampus (Kremayr & Scheriau, 2019), Erbsenzählen (Droschl, 2017). Gertraud Klemm reads from the English translation of her novel "Aberland (Droschl, 2015) and in German, from her last novel "Erbsenzählen" (Droschl, 2017)
3. Jean-Baptiste Para, born in 1956, is a poet, art critic and editor of the journal Littéraire Europe. He received the Prix Apollinaire for his collection, La Faim des ombres (2006). He has also received numerous literary prizes for his translations of Italian and Russian poetry. Jean-Baptiste Para reads from his French translation of the Russian poet Boris Ryzij's work and from his own work "La faim des ombres" (Obsidiane, 2006)
4. Yvonne Reddick is the author of Ted Hughes: Environmentalist and Ecopoet and Translating Mountains. She has received a Northern Writer’s Award, among other prizes and commendations. Her poetry pamphlet Spikenard is a Laureate’s Choice 2019. She has translated Maurice Chappaz and Philippe Jaccottet into English. Yvonne Reddick reads poems from her pamphlet "Spikenard" (smith/doorstop 2019) and a combination of new work
5. Peter Stamm is the author of seven novels, four short-story collections and many plays and radioplays. His books have been translated into almost forty languages. He lives with his family in Winterthur, Switzerland. Peter Stamm reads from his novel " Die sanfte Gleichgültigkeit der Welt (S. Fischer Verlag, 2018) and from its French translation "La douce indifférence du monde" (Christian Bourgois, 2018)
