BIBLIOTOPIA 2019
Week-end des littératures autour du monde

6.30pm Oya Baydar and Juan Gabriel Vásquez in conversation
Dark Corners of History
Moderation: Oriane Jeancourt Galignani, writer and editor at Transfuge magazine
In French

Oya Baydar is a Turkish novelist and political activist, born in 1940. She was exiled from Turkey after the military coup of 1980 and lived in Germany. She wrote about the period of reunification in her award-winning collection of essays Farewell Alyosha(1991). She returned to Turkey in 1992. She has written six novels and won multiple awards, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. Her novel, The Lost Word, published in English in 2011, deals with the Kurdish conflict. Since 2013 she has been writing for the online newspaper T24, particularly about Kurdish issues. Oya Baydar currently lives in Turkey, dividing her time between Istanbul and the Marmara Island.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez was born in 1973 in Bogotá in Colombia where he studied law at the University of Rosario. After graduating, he left for France where he studied Latin American literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. His books include the award-winning The Informers (2008), The Secret History of Costaguana (2011, Qwerty Prize and Fundación Libros y Letras Prize), as well as The Sound of Things Falling (2013, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), The Shape of the Ruins (2018), and the story collection Lovers on All Saints’ Day (2015). His new novel Canciones para el incendio has just been released in Spanish. Published in twenty-eight languages, Vásquez’s books often confront the past of Colombia to understand the present. He has translated the works of E.M. Forster, Victor Hugo and John Hersey, among others, and his articles appear regularly both in Spanish and Latin American publications. After sixteen years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogotá.

7.45pm Tribute to Amos Oz by Claude Thébert

Interview with Philippe Sands
Confronting History and Memory
Moderation: Oriane Jeancourt Galignani, writer and editor at Transfuge magazine
In French, simultaneous interpretation into English

Philippe Sands QC, born in 1960, is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He frequently appears before international courts, including the International Criminal Court and the World Court in The Hague, and has been involved in many of the most important cases of recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq and Guantanamo. His previous books include Lawless World (2005) and Torture Team (2008). East, West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity (2016), is a uniquely personal exploration of the origins of international law, focussing on the Nuremberg trial, the city of Lviv and his family history. He contributes to many newspapers and appears regularly on radio and television, serves on the board of the Hay Festival and is the President of English PEN. He lives in London.

1.30pm Jonathan Coe and Andrey Kurkov in conversation
Political and Satire in Fiction Today
Moderation: Clare O’Dea, writer and journalist 
In English, simultaneous interpretation into French

Jonathan Coe, born in Birmingham in the UK in 1961, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He taught English Poetry at Warwick, subsequently working as a professional musician, writing music for jazz and cabaret. An award-winning novelist, biographer, critic and script-writer, his novels include The Accidental Woman (1987), What a Carve Up! (1994, Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and Prix du Meilleur livre étranger Lire), The House of Sleep (1997, Writer’s Guild Award and Prix Médicis étranger), The Rotters’ Club (2001, Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim (2010), Expo 58 (2013), and Number 11 (2015). His non-fiction includes Like A Fiery Elephant, The Story of BS Johnson (2004, Samuel Johnson Prize), and short biographies of Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, often expressed through satire. His latest novel Middle England (2018) has just been published in the UK. Jonathan Coe lives in London.

 
Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian writer who writes in Russian. Born in St Petersburg in 1961, he graduated from the Kiev Foreign Languages Institute, worked for some time as a journalist, did military service as a prison warder in Odessa, then became a film cameraman, writer of screenplays and novelist. He is the author of nineteen novels, including the bestselling Death and the Penguin (2001), nine books for children, and twenty documentary, fiction and TV movie scripts. In 2013 he wrote Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev, an account of the political crisis in his country. His work is currently translated into forty languages. Kurkov has been commenting on the situation in Ukraine in his fiction and domestic and international journalism. He has recently been elected the President of PEN Ukraine.

3pm Interview with Aminatta Forna
Reversing the Gaze
Moderation: Daniel Medin, professor of comparative literature and editor
In English, simultaneous interpretation into French

Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland in 1964 and grew up in Sierra Leone and Great Britain as well as spending time in Iran, Thailand and Zambia. She is the author of the novels Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2011), The Hired Man (2013) and Happiness (2018), and the memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002). Politically engaged and urgent, her books are a powerful contribution to post-colonial literature. They have won prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2011 and the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize in 2014 from Yale University for a body of work. She has acted as a judge for literary awards, including the International Man Booker. Awarded an OBE in 2017, she is currently Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. In 2003 Aminatta Forna established the Rogbonko Project to build a school in Sierra Leone and run projects on adult education, sanitation and maternal health.

4.30pm Interview with Ali al-Muqri
Giving a Voice to the Voiceless
Moderation: Rania Samara, professor of literature and translator
In Arabic, simultaneous interpretation into French

Ali al-Muqri is a Yemeni writer born in 1966. He has worked in cultural journalism since 1985. Two of his novels, Black Taste, Black Odour(2008, translated into English in 2009) and The Handsome Jew(2009) were longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He was awarded the French Prize for Arabic Literature for Hurma (2015). Ali Al-Muqri was forced to leave Yemen after the publication of this brave and controversial novel and now lives in France as a political refugee. Some of his works have been also translated into German, French and Spanish.

6.30pm Echoes of the Library:  Multilingual Readings
by 3 writers & 4 students Promotion 2020 
of the Lausanne Theater School – Les Teintureries

Jonathan Coe, Aminatta Forna, Andreï Kourkov, invited to the festival BIBLIOTOPIA, will read extracts from their works in original language at the Jan Michalski  Foundation.
In response to the three writers, Térence Carron, Diane Dormet, Nicolas Roussi and Amélie Vidon from the Lausanne Theater School – Les Teintureries will read some pages of their books in French.

8pm Concert: Rodolphe Burger

Considering the role of artists in society, the festival BIBLIOTOPIA opens up to every kind of artistic expressions…
The guitarist, singer and composer, founder of the band Kat Onoma, Rodolphe Burger will give a rock concert to wrap up the day in music.

11am Interview with Anne Nivat
Reporting the Wars
Moderation: Pascal Schouwey, journalist and educator in media
In French, simultaneous interpretation into English

Anne Nivat, born in 1969, is an award-winning French journalist and war correspondent who has covered conflicts in Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Her book Chienne de guerre (2000), reporting from the Chechen war, won the Albert Londres Prize, France’s highest award for journalism. She has been the Moscow correspondent for the newspaper Libération, has written pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune, and has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air, The Connection, and PBS’s News Hour. She is the author of The Wake of War: Encounters with the People of Iraq and Afghanistan(2007), Dans quelle France on vit (2017), Un continent derrière Poutine ? (2018), amongst others. She is known for interviews and character portraits of civilians, especially women, and their experiences of war. She holds a doctorate in political science from the Institut d’études politiques in Paris, and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University.

1pm Mikhail Shishkin and Jacek Dehnel in conversation
Writer as a Literary Activist
Moderation: Daniel Medin, professor of comparative literature and editor
In English, simultaneous interpretation into French

Mikhail Shishkin, born in Moscow in 1961, studied German and English at the University of Moscow. He has lived in Switzerland since 1995. After working as a teacher, translator and interpreter, Mikhail Shishkin is now dedicated to writing. A novelist and essayist, he is the only writer to have received the three most prestigious Russian literary prizes, for Taking Ismail (2000, Russian Booker Prize), Maidenhair (2006, National Bestseller) and The Light and the Dark (2011, Bolshaya Kniga). He is also the author of Dans les pas de Byron et Tolstoï: Du lac Léman à l’Oberland bernois (2005, Best Foreign Book Award) and La Suisse russe (2007). His work is translated into many languages. An active commentator on the situation in Russia at the moment, he has taken a stand on ethical grounds.

Jacek Dehnel was born in Gdańsk in 1980 and is one of the best known Polish writers of his generation. As well as translating many great poets into Polish – among others Ossip Mandelstam, W.H. Auden, Philip Larkin, George Szirtes, and Kārlis Vērdiņš – he is a poet himself. Many of his poems have been translated and published in various languages including English. He is the author of several novels, including Saturn (2012) and Lala (2018). He was awarded the Koscielski Foundation Literary Award in 2005 and Paszport Polityki for the year 2006, and nominated for the 2007 Angelus and 2009 Nike awards. Jacek Dehnel also writes non-fiction as well as columns for Wirtualna Polskaand Polityka, in which he often engages with the current situation in Poland. He lives in Warsaw with his partner, Piotr Tarczynski, with whom he wrote a series of period crime books under the name of Maryla Szymiczkowa. The latest in English is a historical murder mystery, Mrs Mohr Goes Missing (2019).

2.30pm Interview with Jonathan Coe and Screening
The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, from Page to Screen
Moderation: Michelle Bailat-Jones, writer and translator
In English, simultaneous interpretation into French

5pm Raluca Antonescu, Pierre Ducrozet and Oliver Rohe in conversation
Writer’s Engagement in the World
Moderation: Mireille Descombes, literary and cultural journalist, and critic
In French, simultaneous interpretation into English

Raluca Antonescu was born in 1976 in Bucharest in Romania and arrived in Switzerland at the age of four. She spent her childhood between German speaking Switzerland and the canton of Vaud before settling in Geneva. After studying at the École des arts décoratifs and the École supérieure des arts visuels in Geneva, she worked in video and documentary filmmaking before teaching visual arts. Raluca Antonescu, who writes in French, published her first novel, L’inondation, in 2014, followed by Solin 2017, which looks at the issues of Romanian migration, identity and family displacement. It was shortlisted for the 2019 Roman des Romands Prize. She is currently in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation.

Pierre Ducrozet, born in Lyon in France in 1982, is the author of four novels, including Requiem pour Lola rouge (2010, Prix de la Vocation 2011), La vie qu’on voulait (2013) and the highly acclaimed Eroica (2015), a fictionalized biography of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He also translates from Spanish and English and teaches creative writing at the École supérieure des arts visuels in Brussels. His latest book, L’invention des corps (2017), which was awarded the Prix de Flore, combines the themes of transhumanism, political violence, philosophy and immortality, and explores the ethical dilemmas arising from the intrusion of technology into our lives. Pierre Ducrozet is currently in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation.

Oliver Rohe, born in 1972 in Beirut in Lebanon, of Armenian and German descent, now lives in Paris. He is the author of three novels: Origin Unknown (2003), Vacant Lot (2005), Un peuple en petit (2009), as well as Ma dernière création est un piège à taupes (2012), a fictional biography of Mikhaïl Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK-47. His most recent publication is a collection of essays, Àfendre le cœur le plus dur written with Jérôme Ferrari in 2015, which explores the representation of war and images of war in fiction. He is one of the founding members of the Inculte publishing house and writes for France Culture and many periodicals and magazines such as NRF-Nouvelle Revue française, Études, La pensée de midi, Feuilleton. He is currently in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation.

6.30pm Aminatta Forna, Max Lobe and Juan Gabriel Vásquez in conversation
Private Stories, Public Truths
Moderation: Alex Clark, journalist and literary critic
In English, simultaneous interpretation into French

Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland in 1964 and grew up in Sierra Leone and Great Britain as well as spending time in Iran, Thailand and Zambia. She is the author of the novels Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2011), The Hired Man (2013) and Happiness (2018), and the memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002). Politically engaged and urgent, her books are a powerful contribution to post-colonial literature. They have won prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2011 and the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize in 2014 from Yale University for a body of work. She has acted as a judge for literary awards, including the International Man Booker. Awarded an OBE in 2017, she is currently Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. In 2003 Aminatta Forna established the Rogbonko Project to build a school in Sierra Leone and run projects on adult education, sanitation and maternal health.

Max Lobe, born in Douala in Cameroon in 1986, was raised in a family of seven children, and moved to Switzerland at the age of eighteen. He earned a bachelor degree in communications and journalism in Lugano and a master’s in public policy and administration in Lausanne. His novel, 39 rue de Berne (2013),depicting the lives of illegal immigrants in Geneva, was awarded the 2014 Roman des Romands Prize. He won the 2017 Ahmadou Kourouma Prize for Confidences (2016).Loin de Doula (2018), his latest novel, is a voyage of discovery across Cameroon and an exploration of sexual identity. Like his other books, it touches upon the themes of homosexuality, immigration and cultural incomprehension, joining the perspectives of Switzerland and Cameroon. He lives in Geneva.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez was born in 1973 in Bogotá in Colombia where he studied law at the University of Rosario. After graduating, he left for France where he studied Latin American literature at the Sorbonne in Paris. His books include the award-winning The Informers (2008), The Secret History of Costaguana (2011, Qwerty Prize and Fundación Libros y Letras Prize), as well as The Sound of Things Falling (2013, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), The Shape of the Ruins (2018), and the story collection Lovers on All Saints’ Day (2015). His new novel Canciones para el incendio has just been released in Spanish. Published in twenty-eight languages, Vásquez’s books often confront the past of Colombia to understand the present. He has translated the works of E.M. Forster, Victor Hugo and John Hersey, among others, and his articles appear regularly both in Spanish and Latin American publications. After sixteen years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogotá.