IN RESIDENCE MAY 2023

Marion Graf (Switzerland) translation

PROGRAMME GILBERT MUSY

MASTER CLASS CTL UNIL

Marion Graf is a recipient of the Gilbert Musy 2023 translation grant. During her residency at the Château de Lavigny, she will prepare the translation and editing of a selection of poems by Emmy Hennings Ball, and continue the translation of prose by Robert Walser and poems by Thilo Krause.

Heli Alik (Estonia) translation

LOOREN A LAVIGNY FELLOWSHIP

Translation project (French > Estonian)

Heli Allik, born in 1973 in Tallinn, has devoted herself entirely to literary activity since 2015. She has translated the works of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Mathias Énard, Michel Houellebecq and Jonathan Littell, among others, and has written numerous critical articles. She is also a member of the board of the Translators' Section of the Estonian Writers' Union and editor of the journal Tõlkija hääl ("The Voice of the Translator"). In 2023 she was appointed to the rank of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France and received the National Culture Prize awarded by the Estonian Government. At Château de Lavigny, she is working on Céline's unpublished novel, which appeared in 2020, Guerre

Rafael Segovia (Mexico) translation

LOOREN ALAVIGNY FELLOWSHIP

Translation project (French > Spanish)

Rafael Segovia is a translator with over 50 years of experience in the literary and humanities fields. In addition to being a translator since his youth, he has been a critic, screenwriter, theater and television director, cultural civil servant, diplomat (cultural attaché in Montreal), cultural promoter, and professor in several colleges and universities in Mexico. He has translated many French-speaking authors into Spanish as well as Spanish-speaking authors into French. At Château de Lavigny, he’s working on an analytical translation of Aurélia ou le rêve et la vie by Gérard de Nerval

Céline Leroy (France) translation

LOOREN A LAVIGNY FELLOWSHIP

Translation project (English > French)

Céline Leroy was born in 1977 and has been translating English-language literature since 2005. She has translated Deborah Levy, Maggie Nelson, Natahsa Trethewey, Rebecca Solnit, Katie Kitamura, Anne Boyer, Barbara Kingsolver, Jeanette Winterson, Atticus Lish, Laura Kasischke, Peter Heller and Don Carpenter. Since 2021, she has also been translating contemporary American poetry in a serial entitled Poetic transfer for the online magazine Catastrophes. She lives and works in Paris. At Château de Lavigny, she’s working on the translation of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy.

Alexey Voïnov (Russia) translation

LOOREN A LAVIGNY FELLOWSHIP

Translation project (French > Russian)

Alexey Voïnov, writer, has been working on literary translation from French into Russian since 2003. He has translated about 40 books by Marguerite Duras, Hervé Guibert, Valery Larbaud, Julien Green, Balthus, Eugène Savitzkaya, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, René Crevel, Marcel Broodthaers, Yann Andréa. He translates classical texts of the 20th century, autofiction authors and authors of the LGBT+ community. He left Russia in May 2022 as a sign of his protest against the war and the violation of human rights. At Château de Lavigny, he’s working on the translation of three novels by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz: Passage du poète, La Guérison des maladies and Les Signes parmi nous, which will be published in Russian in Tel Aviv

IN RESIDENCE JUNE 2023

Fredrik Ekman (Sweden) non fiction, libretto

Fredrik Ekman is a writer and a librettist. Ekman has written several non-fiction books together with artist Magnus Bärtås. In 2011 they published All monster must die, which was shortlisted for the prestigious August Prize. Their latest collaboration was the Gabriele D’Annunzio biography The Annunciator. Ekman has also worked in the field of music drama and composed pieces for Radio France , WDR in Köln and The Swedish National Radio.

Marion Graf (Switzerland) translation, essay, critic

PROGRAMME GILBERT MUSY

MASTER CLASS CTL UNIL

Marion Graf is a recipient of the Gilbert Musy 2023 translation grant. During her residency at the Château de Lavigny, she will prepare the translation and editing of a selection of poems by Emmy Hennings Ball, and continue the translation of prose by Robert Walser and poems by Thilo Krause.

Tara Ison (USA) fiction

Tara Ison is the author of the novels A Child out of Alcatraz, The List, Rockaway, and the recent At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf; the short story collection Ball; and the essay collection Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies. Her short fiction and cnf have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies, including BOMB, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.

Olivia Kuderewski (Germany) fiction

Olivia Kuderewski, born in 1989, studied comparative literature in Augsburg and Seville and creative writing in Hildesheim. She lives in Berlin and works as a freelance nonfiction editor, among other things. Her debut novel Luxwas awarded the Klaus Michael Kühne Prize for the best debut novel in German language in 2021. Her second novel Haha Heartbreak was published in 2022 and deals with female sexuality and modern relationships.

Christopher Linforth (UK) fiction

Christopher Linforth is the author of three story collections, The Distortions (Orison Books, 2022), winner of the 2020 Orison Books Fiction Prize, Directory (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions, 2020), and When You Find Us We Will Be Gone(Lamar University Press, 2014).

IN RESIDENCE JULY 2023

Stewart Lee Allen (USA) non-fiction, fiction

Stewart Lee Allen is the author of In the Devil’s Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food. Another book of his, The Devil’s Cup, was published in 17 languages including French Le breuvage du diable (Noir sur Blanc, 2001). He was born in California and has lived in Calcutta, Paris, Katmandu, and Sydney. He lives in Brooklyn.

Raluca Antonescu (Switzerland) fiction

Born in Bucharest in 1976, Raluca Antonescu arrived in Switzerland at the age of four. After training at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, she worked in video and taught visual arts. She has published three novels at the Editions de la Baconnière: L'inondation (2014), Sol (2017) and Inflorescence (2021).

This residency is supported by la Ville de Lausanne - Prix des lecteurs de la Ville de Lausanne 2022

Regina Dürig (Switzerland) fiction

Regina Dürig (Swiss German) writes experimental prose, audio dramas, children's books and YA novels; in 2021 her acclaimed novel Federn lassen was published by Droschl, Graz. Collaborations are an important part of her artistic practice, notably the Stories & Sounds duo Butterland with Christian Müller and the text-drawing-collective DUA with visual artist Patrizia Bach. Regina lives in Biel.

Cristina Masanés (Catalonia, Spain) non-fiction

Degree in Philosophy at the University of Barcelona and master in Gender Studies at the University of Valencia. She works as a freelance journalist for magazines and museums. She writes narrative essay and her language is catalan. She is the author of the books: Eroica (2021), Germaine Gargallo. Body, Paint and Error (2014) and Lídia de Cadaqués. Chronicle of a delirium (2001). In Lavigny she will work in her next book, a story about the language-loss process as a result of a stroke.

This residency is supported by the Institut Ramon Llull

Alexey Voïnov (Russia - in exile) Translation, poetry, fiction

Alexey Voïnov is a writer and a translator. He has been translating literature from French into Russian since 2003. He has translated some forty books by Marguerite Duras, Hervé Guibert, Valery Larbaud, Julien Green, Balthus, Eugène Savitzkaya, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, René Crevel, Marcel Broodthaers and Yann Andréa. He translates twentieth-century classics, autofiction and LGBT+ authors. He left Russia in May 2022 in protest against the war and the violation of human rights. At Château de Lavigny, he is starting a new book about his departure from Russia and the loss of all roots. He is also preparing a collection of texts by Ukrainian, Belorussian and Russian poets exiled because of their stance against the war. These texts will be published in Switzerland. At the same time, he completes the translation of Passage du poète, one of three novels by C. F. Ramuz to be published in Russian in Tel-Aviv.

This residency is supported by S. Fischer Stiftung

IN RESIDENCE AUGUST 2023

Ibrahima Aya (Mali) fiction

Pro Helvetia Fellowship

A native of the Timbuktu region in Mali, Ibrahima Aya is a writer and editor. Co-founder of Editions Tombouctou, he lives in Bamako. He has notably published Les larmes de Djoliba, Les âniers de la Casbah, Querelle autour d’un âge, Rires et pleurs des orphelins. He has also participated in or co-edited the writing of several collective works including: Voix hautes pour Tombouctou, Le Mali entre doutes et espoirs, Le Mali contemporain.Le pays des éclipses, published in 2021, is his latest work. He is the co-founder and director of the "Rentrée littéraire du Mali", the literary event of reference in Mali, created in 2008.

This residency is supported by Pro Helvetia

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Améziane Ferhani (Algeria) fiction, non fiction

Pro Helvetia Fellowship

Born in 1954 in Algiers where he lives and works, he devoted himself, after his studies in urban sociology, to cultural journalism and communication, his second passion. He was editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine Parcours Maghrébins and of the weekly Arts & Lettres, a supplement to the daily newspaper El Watan.

He has published collections of short stories, Traverses d'Alger (Chihab, 2015) and Les couffins de l'équinoxe (Chihab, 2018) as well as a beautiful book on the history of Algerian comics (Dalimen, 2012). He has participated in several collective works on heritage and culture and is the author or prefacer of many art catalogs.

Very active on the cultural scene as an organizer or programmer, he was notably responsible for the communication of the Year of Algeria in France (2003). In 2018, he was elevated to the rank of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. Since February 2023, he is a founding member of Ramali, the African Network of Literary Events. He is currently completing a novel.

This residency is supported by Pro Helvetia

Anne-Frédérique Rochat (Switzerland) fiction

State of Vaud Fellowship

Anne-Frédérique Rochat was born in 1977 in Vevey. In 2000, she graduated from the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique de Lausanne. Shortly after, she began writing plays and then novels, finding a different, but complementary pleasure in the exercise of these two literary genres. Today eight of her plays have been performed, and she has published nine novels. The latest, Quand meurent les éblouissements was published by Éditions Slatkine in 2022. She lives in Lausanne.

This residency is supported by Canton de Vaud

Steffen Schroeder (Germany) fiction

Steffen Schroeder was well-known as an actor, when his first book was published, a memoir on his voluntary service in prison; it was followed by the novels Mein Sommer mit Anja (2020) and Planck oder Als das Licht seine Leichtigkeit verlor (2022). Steffen Schroeder is member of the German Film Academy, and appointed ambassador of EXIT Germany, due to the commitment against rightist extremism.

Nelly Shulman (Russia) fiction, non fiction

Nelly Shulman is a writer currently based in Berlin. She is an author of seven popular novels. Nelly is working on her next novel about the Russian emigres in 1920s and on the non-fiction book about the Russian revolution. She is a Hawthornden Fellow and a Fulbright scholar. Her work has appeared on JewishFiction.net, in the Vine Leaves Press Anthology of the Best 2021 Flash Fiction and in the various literary magazines. She is a winner of two writing awards.

This residency is supported by S. Fischer Stiftung

IN RESIDENCE SEPTEMBER 2023

Amilcar Bettega (Brazil) fiction, translation

Pro Helvetia Fellowship

Amilcar Bettega is the author of five books, including three collections of short stories, one of prose and a novel. His books and short stories, published in a dozen countries, have received several important awards in Brazil. As a translator, he has translated, among others, a collection of 125 short stories by Guy de Maupassant. He was a resident of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, USA, in 2010 and has taught at universities in France, China and Brazil.

This residency is supported by Pro Helvetia

Ibrahima Aya (Mali) fiction

Pro Helvetia Fellowship

A native of the Timbuktu region in Mali, Ibrahima Aya is a writer and editor. Co-founder of Editions Tombouctou, he lives in Bamako. He has notably published Les larmes de Djoliba, Les âniers de la Casbah, Querelle autour d’un âge, Rires et pleurs des orphelins. He has also participated in or co-edited the writing of several collective works including: Voix hautes pour Tombouctou, Le Mali entre doutes et espoirs, Le Mali contemporain.Le pays des éclipses, published in 2021, is his latest work. He is the co-founder and director of the "Rentrée littéraire du Mali", the literary event of reference in Mali, created in 2008.

This residency is supported by Pro Helvetia

Chloé Falcy (Switzerland) fiction

State of Vaud Fellowship

Born in 1991, Chloé Falcy grew up in Gimel, in the middle of the Vaud countryside and books. She is notably the author of the novel Balkis, winner of the 2017 Chênois Literary Prize and finalist for the 2018 Prix des 5 continents de la francophonie. She has a degree in English and Italian from the University of Lausanne, and works for Éditions Loisirs et Pédagogie in addition to her literary activities.

She was awarded a residency at the Château de Lavigny as the winner of the writing grant from the State of Vaud 2022 for Une mer dans le ventre, the story of her pregnancy during the pandemic.

This residency is supported by Canton de Vaud

Florin Irimia (Romania) fiction

Florin Irimia (b. 1976) is a Romanian writer. He has published three novels: Defekt, Brumar, 2011, winner of the First Novel Festival of Chambéry (Festival du Premier Roman, Chambéry) in 2013 (Bulgarian translation 2017), O fereastră întunecată/A Darkened Window, Polirom, 2012 (Turkish translation, 2015), Câteva lucruri despre tine/A Few Things about You, Polirom 2014, and two volumes of interlinked short-stories (or indirect novels) about personal memory and trauma: Misterul mașinuțelor chinezești/The Mystery of the Chinese Toy Cars, Polirom 2017 (Hungarian translation, 2022), and Bărbatul din spatele ceții,/The Man From Behind the Fog, Polirom, 2021. He has also published short stories in various literary magazines such as, Dacia literară, Familia, Iocan, Observator cultural, Timpul and in translation in Elȍretolt Helyȍrség, Hévíz, Helikon, Irodalmi Jelen, Látó, S.p.r.i.t.Z, Specimen: The Babel Review of Translations, and Székelyföld. He lives in Iași, Romania with his wife.

László Végel (Serbia- Hungarian speaking) fiction, non fiction, theater

Végel's parents belonged to the Hungarian minority in Vojvodina (autonomous province in Serbia). Végel studied philosophy in Novi Sad and Belgrade, then worked as a journalist, among others as editor of the Hungarian-language daily Magyar Szó and, from 1965 to 1971, as co-editor of the Hungarian-language monthly and literary magazine Új Symposion. As a dramatist for the Novi Sad Television and the Subotica People's Theatre, he wrote several scripts and plays. At the same time, he wrote novels and essays, which were sometimes published in their Serbo-Croatian translation even before the original Hungarian version was published. Végel published his first epic work in 1967, Egy makró emlékiratai (The Great Writings of Memory), which was translated into Serbian by Alexander Tisma. From 1994 to 2001, when it was closed, Végel was the head of the Soros Foundation office in Novi Sad. Since 2002, he has been a member of the Helsinki Committee in Belgrade.

THIS RESIDENCY IS SUPPORTED BY S. FISCHER STIFTUNG

IN RESIDENCE OCTOBER 2023

Janina Dragostinova (Bulgaria) Translation

Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project

Translation project (German > Bulgarian) Blutbuch by German-speaking Swiss writer Kim de l’Horizon

Janina Dragostinova, born in 1962 in Varna on the Black Sea coast, studied German studies and film studies in Sofia. Since 1991, she has worked as a cultural journalist for various newspapers and magazines. In 2001, she began translating German literature and has translated over 50 books into Bulgarian to date. Among the authors she has translated are Daniel Kehlmann, Stefan Zweig, Juli Zeh, Eugen Ruge, Jonas Lüscher, Robert Seethaler, Arno Geiger, and others.

Todorka Mineva (Bulgaria) translation

Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project

Translation project (French > Bulgarian) Exil et musique essay by French-speaking Swiss writer Étienne Barilier

Todorka Mineva is a literary translator and editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian publisher SONM. A graduate in philosophy and French language and literature from Sofia University Saint Kliment Ohridski, she has translated from French into Bulgarian humanities works by Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, Jean Starobinski, Jean-François Lyotard, Henri Bergson, Antonin Artaud, etc., as well as literary works by Emile Verhaeren, Georges Rodenbach, André Baillon, Marguerite Duras, Jacques Chessex, Georges Haldas, etc.

Jamie Lee Searle (UK) Translation

Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project

Translation project (German > English) Blutbuch by German-speaking Swiss writer Kim de l’Horizon

Jamie Lee Searle is a literary translator from German and Portuguese into English. Her publications include Urs Faes’ Twelve Nights, Anna Kim’s The Great Homecoming and Joachim B. Schmidt’s Kalmann. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and a co-founder of the Emerging Translators Network. Jamie previously worked with the Stephen Spender Trust, coordinating their prize for poetry in translation. She has held translation and writing residencies at Art Omi, New York, and the Austrian Literature Society, Vienna.

Yvette Siegert (USA) translation

Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project

Translation project (French > English) Cent petites histoires d’amour and Cent petites histoires cruelles by French-speaking Swiss writer S. Corinna Bille

Yvette Siegert was born in the United States and lives in the United Kingdom. She studied at Columbia University and the Université de Genève, and is completing a doctorate at the University of Oxford. She is the author of Atmospheric Ghost Lights (Poetry Society of America, 2023). Her translations include works by Chantal Maillard, Fernando Vallejo, Juan Villoro, Ana Gorría, Jacinta Escudos, and Alejandra Pizarnik, for which she won the Best Translated Book Award. 

Petro Tarashchuk (Ukraine) Translation

Pro Helvetia Fellowship for translator with a Swiss project

Translation project (French > Ukrainian) Permis C by French-speaking Swiss writer Joseph Incardona

Petro Tarashchuk was born in 1956 in Vinnitsa, into a family of doctors. After studying medicine in Kyiv and then at the Kyiv Institute of Physical Culture, he did his military service in the Soviet Army. Afterwards he studied at the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute and at the Shevchenko University in Kyiv, in the faculty of literature (Ukrainian philology). He worked as a guide for the Shevchenko Museum in Kyiv (1989-1990) and as an editor for the publishing house Dnipro (1990-1993). Since 1993 he has devoted himself entirely to the profession of translator. In 1998 he was elected a member of the Ukrainian Writers' Association. He was awarded the Skovoroda Prize (2010) and the M. Rylskyj Prize (2012) for his translations.