Episodios
-
When British-Ugandan Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi wanted her debut novel Kintu published in Europe, publisher after publisher told her no – the novel was “too African”: It was neither about the colonial period nor about Idi Amin, the two things about Uganda that Western readers have heard of. And also, the characters had such complicated names. They couldn’t imagine any European readers would like to learn something new about Uganda and its history.
Makumbi’s novel is an epic family saga, taking us through the history of Uganda – from the kingdom of Buganda before the arrival of the Europeans, and up to today’s society, in which she combines myths and Biblical history with fairytales and oral storytelling tradition. In a distilled, lyrical language, we meet the patriarch Kintu in the mid-eighteenth century, when he is subject to a dark curse, before we follow his many descendants into our own time, where they all, in different ways, struggle with curses of their own. We particularly see how the men of the family struggle to live up to society’s masculine ideals. Maybe this is the real curse, affecting each of their lives and slowly poisoning the entire society?
Kintu is Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s first novel, published in 2014 after she won a manuscript competition by Kenyan Kwani Trust. Makumbi has since published the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Woman, and she has won a number of awards for her writing.
At the House of Literature, she is joined by author and creative director for the organization Radical Books Collective, Bhakti Shringarpure, for a conversation about a family and a nation, about curses and consolation.
The event was supported by NORAD.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Sonia Nasir is a somewhat successful actor in London. After a distressing end to a love affair, she travels to see her sister in Haifa, Israel, where their father’s family is from, and where she’s hardly been since she was a teenager. Soon, she is pulled into a local theatre production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet on the West Bank. And as the past catches up with Sonia, ghosts appear off stage as well.
Enter Ghost is a complex and skillfully composed novel, an exploration of identity and belonging, the role of art, community, and the painful story of a family and a people.
Isabella Hammad is a British-Palestinian author. Her debut novel The Parisian won a number of awards, including the Betty Trask Award and the Palestine Book Award, and I 2023, she was included on Granta’s prestigious list of Best young British Novelists. Enter Ghost is her second novel.
Priya Bains is a poet, an activist and editor of the literary magazine Vinduet. She will join Hammad for a conversation about ghosts and sisters, Hamlet and the occupation.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
¿Faltan episodios?
-
When she began her masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale in 1984, Margaret Atwood was living in West Berlin, just a stone’s throw away from the Wall to East Berlin, with its omnipresent secret police. The world behind the Iron Curtain clearly influenced her famous future dystopia, in which she set as a rule that she would not include any horrors that humans had not already done in some other place or time in history.
On the other side of the Wall, author Jenny Erpenbeck grew up in the east, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), experiencing the country’s zenith as well as its disintegration and the victorious capitalist West just a few years later. In her award winning body of work, Erpenbeck has gone on to explore the complex history of Germany and greater Europe, where ordinary citizens become hostages to the grand ideas and ruptures of the times.
Both Atwood and Erpenbeck are concerned with totalitarianism, with history and how it informs the present and the future, with our fragile normality, and how quickly it can turn into brutality. While they write lyrical and innovative fiction - incorporating mythology, literature and philosophy - the links to the world around us, either past, present or futures we are headed towards, are always there.
Margaret Atwood has published more than 70 books of poetry, short story collections, novels, children’s books,and essay collections. Stories like The Handmaid’s Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy have made her a name across the world, and a number of her books have been adapted to film, TV, opera and ballet, and, like Erpenbeck, she is regularly mentioned as a favorite for the Nobel prize in literature.
Jenny Erpenbeck is the author of a number of critically acclaimed and award winning novels, short story collections, plays and essays. Her latest novel, Kairos, won the 2024 International Booker Prize.
In this event, these two exceptional authors met for the first time on stage, for a conversation about history and society, memory and hope for the future. The conversation was moderated by Helge Jordheim, professor of cultural history at the University of Oslo.
The conversation took place on November 2st, 2024 in The University of Oslo's Ceremonial Hall.
LitHouse is a podcast from the House of Literature in Oslo, presenting adapted versions of lectures and conversations featuring international writers and thinkers.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Canadian author Margaret Atwood is a living legend. Since her debut in 1961 with the poetry collection Double Persephone, she has published more than 70 books of poetry, short story collections, novels, children’s books, essay collections and even opera librettos, including the world-renowned novels The Handmaid’s Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy. Atwood has truly made her mark with her literary explorations of totalitarianism, patriarchal structures and environmental destruction, and is known for her almost prophetic speculative fiction, set in societies curbing women’s rights or experiencing a worldwide pandemic or environmental collapse.
In her literature, Atwood is mischievous, fearless and original, frequently incorporating elements from classical texts, fairytales and works by writers like William Shakespeare or George Orwell. While her books often include elements from historical events, they also suggest new worlds and possibilities for the future.
Atwood was joined by journalist and writer Karin Haugen for a conversation about the past and the present, prophetic stories and her unique body of work.
This conversation was hosted by The House of Literature in Oslo and took place on October 31st, 2024 at the Oslo Opera House.
LitHouse is a podcast from The House of Literature in Oslo, presenting adapted versions of lectures and conversations featuring international writers and thinkers.
Music by Apothek.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
How can Africa reach its full potential when Europe is still the blueprint to model oneself after? Not only has centuries of colonization and exploitation stripped the continent of opportunities, but the term “development” has all but become synonymous with following in Europe’s footsteps.
This is the argument of Senegalese academic Felwine Sarr in his book Afrotopia, which has had great influence in academic as well as public discourse. In it, he explores the possibility of a new Africa, with the help of African thinkers, artists and philosophic traditions. Africa needs a utopia, a goal to strive towards, without comparing themselves to others, Sarr says. How might such an afrotopia look?
Felwine Sarr is a leading academic and a prominent voice in public discourse. He is professor in economics at the Gaston-Berger University in Senegal, and professor of French and francophone studies at Duke University, USA, as well as a musician and the author of several novels. Together with the philosopher Achille Mbembe, he has established Les Ateliers De La Pensée, which gathers academics and writers from across Africa and the diaspora. In 2018, commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron, Sarr and the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy authored a seminal report on repatriation of African cultural artifacts from French museums.
Andreas Liebe Delsett is a writer and former artistic director at the House of Literature, currently working on a book about South Africa's recent history.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
The author of twelve novels, along with a number of non-fiction books and plays, Rachel Cusk is one of our most prominent contemporary writers. Her brave, razor sharp and original voice has made her a favourite with readers and critics alike.
Cusk is a truly innovative writer, pushing the boundaries of the form for each new publication. Already in 2008, when she published her brutally honest depiction of motherhood A Life’s Work, she was miles ahead of contemporary feminist discourse. Her Outline trilogy was considered by many critics a revolution of the novel form.
Her latest novel Parade is no different. Here, Cusk continues her exploration of unconventional structures, delving into the lives of a number of artists all referred to with the initial G. Their stories are told through a nameless narrator moving seamlessly in and out of the different tales. The result is a boldly composed exploration of the role of the artist and what drives someone to create art, a novel about how both art and artist are shaped by society’s gaze. In Parade, Cusk dissects interpersonal relationships and existential questions with precision and clarity.
In The University of Oslo's Ceremonial Hall, Cusk will be joined by journalist and publisher Jessika Gedin, for a conversation about the connections between art and life, about gender roles, the artist and how we human beings are able to live side by side.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Lately, much attention has been given to political attacks on prestigious writers. The attempted murder of Salman Rushdie and the deplatforming of Adania Shibli at the Frankfurt Book Fair sparked international outrage and raised awareness of ongoing threats to individual writers today.
Far less attention is given to the fact that across the world, writers are prosecuted and jailed for their supposed dissidence to autocratic regimes. Turkey is among the world leaders in its number of jailed authors, a trend that increases wherever war and conflict can form a forgiving political climate.
What is the effect of political persecution on individual writers? And how does such a climate affect the writers who remain “free”?
For decades, Yasemin Çongar has been one of Turkey’s most renowned journalists and oppositional voices to the Turkish regime. Since 2016, she has herself been on trial for her journalism, and is still fighting a lengthy prison sentence.
In 2018, Çongar also founded the Kıraathane literature house in Istanbul, where she worked as director until March 2023. At Kıraathane, as well as through her work as a translator and writer, Çongar has helped raise awareness of the challenges faced by writers today.
Now, Çongar visits the House of Literature for a philosophical and personal lecture on freedom, creativity, and the transcendent power of literature.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Igoni Barrett is a Nigerian writer of novels and short stories, especially well known for his award-winning novel 2015 Blackass. In 2014, he was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of African writers under 40. Barrett is also part of the House of Literature's artistic council, advising in our project to promote African literature.
This is Igoni Barrett's reading list:
Abdulrazak Gurnah, Afterlives (Etterliv)Zoe Wicomb, You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town (Ingen går seg vill i Cape Town)Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (De blåeste øyne)Jazz
Alex Haley, Roots (Røtter)Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Usynlig mann)Yambo Ouloguem, Le devoir de violence (Bound To Violence)Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (Menneskenes mest fordekte minne)Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
What do the Mings, The Rameses’, the Romanovs, the Assads and the Clintons have in common? They are all family dynasties who, for better or worse, have influenced the history of the world.
Historian and writer Simon Sebag Montefiore is a formidable storyteller, and his detailed and engaging works about historical figures such as Catherine the Great, Stalin and the Romanovs have earned him readers across the globe. In his most recent book, The World – A Family History of Humanity, his focus is no less than the entire world history, told through some of the most central family dynasties.
More than an ambitious and grand project, Montefiore’s latest colossal publication is also an exploration and re-thinking of how we tell history. “World history often has themes, not people; biography has people, not themes,” as he writes in the book’s introduction.
By emphasizing the family, he is able to combine the two – the great historical events with the stories of the people in the midst of it all. He also gives more space to the role of women, and tells parts of the world’s history that might not be as well known among most Norwegian and European readers, such as Sundiata Keita’s kingdom in Mali, Itzcoatl and the founding of the Aztek kingdom, and Ashoka and the Mauyrya empire in ancient India.
Diving into world history with Montefiore on stage is Shazia Majid, award-winning journalist and author of the book Ut av skyggene (“Out of the Shadows”), about the first generation of Pakistani migrant workers in Norway.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Lecture by Denise DeCaires Narain
This lecture introduces two of the most prolific Caribbean women writers, Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid, comparing their distinctive styles and thematic focus. Both writers have spoken of the significance of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre in their writing lives and the lecture will explore how this plays out in their work, particularly in their respective engagements with anger and madness.
For many feminist critics, Bertha Mason, Jane Eyre’s “mad woman in the attic, encapsulates the fury of women excluded (or expelled) by patriarchal structures. In this lecture, Denise DeCaires Narain argues that the unique forms that Rhys and Kincaid deploy give shape to that fury in productive and stylish ways.
Denise DeCaires Narain has worked at the University of Sussex for a number of years, where her research has focused especially on Caribbean writers and postcolonial literature. In this lecture, she offers a unique introduction to two of the most prominent writers from the Caribbean: Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer, currently living in Scotland. She is the author of six award winning novels, including The Translator (1999), Bird Summons (2019) and River Spirit (2023), as well as a number of plays and short story collections. Aboulela was the first ever winner of the Caine Prize for Fiction, and an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
This is Leila Aboulela’s reading list:
Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow KingTayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the NorthThe Wedding of Zein
Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street)The Thief and the dogs
Ahdaf Soueif, In the Eye of the SunFatin Abbas, Ghost Season Isabella Hammad, The ParisianEnter Ghost
In this podcast series the House of Literature in Oslo, Norway invites writers and thinkers to talk about their work, what they read and present their reading list from the African continent and diaspora.
Host in this episode Åshild Lappegård Lahn
Editing and production by the House of Literature
Music by Ibou Cissokho
The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Elizabeth Strout is one of the most distinct voices in contemporary American literature, and beloved by readers and critics alike. Her international breakthrough came with the novel Olive Kitteridge, which earned her the 2009 Pulitzer Prize, and which was later adapted into the award winning mini series of the same name. Since then, she has written four books in her Lucy Barton series; My Name Is Lucy Barton, Anything Is Possible, Oh, William! and Lucy by the Sea.
Her Lucy novels tell stories about exposedness, poverty, grief and childhood trauma, but also about the value of hope, art and love. Lucy grows up in a poor and dysfunctional family in the Illinois countryside and becomes a writer against all odds. Through her village upbringing and different periods in Lucy’s life, the novels depicts her slow awakening as a writer, someone who tells stories, who gives the world meaning through language.
In Strout’s novels and short stories, the great drama unfolds within unassuming everyday life. The emotional lives of ordinary people are portrayed with depth, warmth and complexity, while she simultaneously shows a keen eye for the larger societal structures and systems of which we, consciously or unconsciously, are part.
At the House of Literature, Strout is joined by writer Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold for a conversation about family, community and change.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Elizabeth Strout is one of the most distinct voices in contemporary American literature, and beloved by readers and critics alike. She started writing at an early age, but it would take her many years to finally get published. Back then, her mantra was “just keep going”.
This year, Strout’s debut novel, Amy and Isabelle, is finally available in Norwegian (translated by Hilde Rød-Larsen). Her international breakthrough came with the novel Olive Kitteridge, which earned her the 2009 Pulitzer Prize, and which was later adapted into the award-winning mini series of the same name. Since then, she has written four books in her Lucy Barton series; My Name Is Lucy Barton, Anything Is Possible, Lucy by the Sea and Oh, William! – which have earned Strout a reputation of an unafraid and deeply thoughtful writer.
«You can’t write fiction and be careful,» Strout has said. Growing up in a small, rural town with a strict family – similarly to her beloved character Lucy Barton – books were miracles and refuges – places in which she realized she was not alone.
In this personal lecture, Strout will talk about her journey from when she first started to write, and to becoming a published author, highlighting some of the authors and books that have shaped and influenced her along the way, such as Alice Munro, Eudora Welty and Ernest Hemingway. A constant observer of those around her, she will talk about where she finds inspiration for her characters and how she learned to throw caution to the wind.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Writer and therapist Glenn Bech sparked a larger debate about class issues in Denmark with his autobiographical novel The Fathership (forthcoming in Hazel Evans’ translation) and his manifesto Jeg anerkænder ikke længere jeres autoritet (“I no longer recognize your authority”).
The novel The Fathership depicts a brutal childhood characterized by violence, betrayals and toxic masculinity, but that also has a tenderness and love for the families and working class community portrayed. The novel was praised by the literary establishment, and the following year, Bech published Jeg anerkænder ikke længere jeres autoritet (“I no longer recognize your authority”), a furious manifesto about class struggle, the proletariat and the elite. In a self-scrutinizing, loud and emphatic prose, Bech rails against class contempt and the economic blind spots within the cultural middle class, showing the reader what it is like to be exposed, gay and poor.
Masculinity, homophobia and class are central issues in British poet and author Andrew McMillan’s critically acclaimed debut novel Pity. The book portrays three generations of men, spanning from the heyday of the coal industry, with long days of back-breaking labour in the mines, to a present characterized by unemployment and loneliness. In a sparse but urgent tone and with an eye for the raw and vulnerable, McMillan explores today’s gender roles for men, and how the past affects the present. At the same time, the book is a tribute to the working class and an invitation to reflection, change and acceptance.
McMillan and Bech are joined by writer and journalist Kristofer Folkhammar for a conversation about poverty, class and toxic gender roles.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
History is written by the victorious. But do we not also need to hear the story from the other side, from ordinary people caught in the middle of historical upheavals, forced to pick a side, or just try to survive? To those relegated to the footnotes in the history books, or not mentioned at all.
This can be said to be the starting point for the novels of Sudanese-Scottish Leila Aboulela and Ethiopian-American Maaza Mengiste, both writing about historical events in their home countries.
The backdrop in Aboulela’s new novel River Spirit is the dramatic time in the Sudan’s history in the late 19th century. In the span of just a few years, the country underwent several occupations, as well as a bloody revolution led by a man claiming to be al-Mahdi (the Islamic Messiah). Through a multitude of voices from different sides of the conflicts, and with the young orphaned girl Akuany as a turning point, Aboulela leads us through a central historical time in the Sudan.
A young, poor woman is also central in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King, telling the story of 1935 Ethiopia invaded by Mussolini’s Italy. Told from as different perspectives as Ethiopia’s emperor Haile Selassie, the Italian soldier Ettore and the servant girl Hirut, the novel offers a complex picture of the events. Mengiste has emphasized that she was particularly interested in exploring women’s role in the resistance movement.
Mengiste was born in Ethiopia, and is currently living in the United States. She has explored Ethiopia’s recent history in both her critically acclaimed novels Beneath the Lion’s Gaze and The Shadow King, with the latter shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize. Mengiste has also made her mark as a photographer and an essayist.
Aboulela was born in the Sudan, today she lives in Scottland. She has published a number of award winning novels, short story collections and plays. River Spirit is the first novel in a planned series exploring Scotland’s role in the British colonization of the Sudan.
At the House of Literature, Aboulela and Mengiste meet writer and creative director of the Radical Books Collective, Bhakti Shringarpure, for a conversation about writing historical fiction, and about foregrounding the stories of women and ordinary people within big historical events.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
The year is 1949, and the state of Israel is in its infancy. In the Negev desert, bordering Egypt, Israeli armed forces have set up camp with the mission to “cleanse it of any remaining Arabs” after the war the preceding year. They happen upon a Beduin family, a teenage girl among them, whom the soldiers rape, kill and bury in the desert.
In present-day Ramallah, a young woman discovers these events through a small newspaper story. It catches her attention because the events took place exactly 25 years before the day she was born. The woman becomes compelled to find out what actually happened in that desert, and embarks upon a highly dangerous journey to come to the bottom of the story.
Adania Shibli is a critically acclaimed Palestinian writer, and holds a PhD in media and cultural studies. She has published three novels in Arabic, and Minor Detail is the first to be translated into Norwegian. While slim in size, the novel contains far more than the modest number of pages would suggest. Shibli explores themes such as belonging and loss, depicting the everyday absurdities under a normalized occupation. Shibli’s language is precise and sparse, the story concise. The many gaps in the story creates a tension, quivering beneath the surface and increasing by each page.
The novel was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2021, and in 2023, it won the prestigious German LiBeraturpreis. However, they chose to postpone the award ceremony indefinitely after Hamas’s terror attack on October 7th and Israel’s following war on Gaza, a decision met with extensive criticism internationally.
At the House of Literature, Shibli will meet writer colleague Maaza Mengiste for a conversation about language, the past, borders and all the minor details that make up our reality.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Freedom of expression is never absolute, but subject to laws and social conventions. Threats to freedom of thought and speech can come directly from authoritarian states or religious institutions. But they can also be self-inflicted, in the form of self-censorship. Both forms of censorship exist in democracies as well as dictatorship, and often overlap.
Throughout history, authors in particular have been made the object of the limitations set by powerful institutions, be it by explicit decree or through the trepidations felt at writing challenging or shocking literature.
Few know this landscape better than historian, author and critic Ian Buruma. He has written a host of books on East Asian (especially Chinese and Japanese) culture and history, the West and Islam, and European history, including this year’s The Collaborators. Buruma is also highly respected columnist and critic for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, the latter of which he also served as editor-in-chief.
This evening, Buruma will give an introductory lecture on how censorship has shaped culture and the arts in both Eastern and Western countries, before being interviewed by author and professor of cultural history at the University of Oslo, Helge Jordheim. He will join Buruma on stage for a conversation on how threats to expression have changed over time, and the challenges that writers face today.
This event marks the beginning of The House of Literature’s series on “Forbidden books”, which sheds light on the ways in which literature is made forbidden, censored, or otherwise suppressed, historically and today.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
The year is 1995, and 16 year old Shy is sneaking out of the rural boarding school for “difficult” boys, named “Last Chance”. A long history of petty crime, expulsions and frustrated family members has brought him here, but now it is all soon over. With a spliff in his pocket and his Walkman loaded with his drum ‘n’ bass favourites, he’s ready. His rucksack is filled with rocks, and his head is swimming with memories of all his failures and times he fucked it up.
Shy is a compositionally ambitious and lyrical character study with troubled youth as its subject. Through frequent flashbacks and interjections, Shy provides us with glimpses of a difficult childhood leading to a young man at the verge of self-annihilation. Shy is a tender story of depression and not being able to fit in, told with great compassion and nuance. At the same time, the novel is a fervent ode to the outsiders of the 90s and to the culture and music that embraced them, those who no one else wanted.
Max Porter is a British author and editor at the publishing house Granta. With his experimental and innovative novels, in particular Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, he has established himself as one of his generation’s most exciting voices and acquired a large readership among critics and with the general public. Even other writers like Douglas Stuart, PJ Harvey and George Saunders have expressed their admiration for Porter and his trilogy of novels on boyhood, which Shy now completes.
Another writer who has followed Porter’s career with curiosity and excitement is Norwegian author and editor at Tiden, Mattis Øybø. He will meet Porter for a conversation on Shy, masculinity and how best to bring the outsiders back in.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Do you understand why I’ve decided to tell you about our family? If our stories survive, we will not die, even when our bodies are no longer here on this earth.
The Vietnam war was a watershed event in the Cold War as well as in the West’s understanding of itself. But what does the story look like from a Vietnamese perspective?
In Vietnam, the war is still a traumatic experience. This is what writer Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai explores in her novel The Mountains Sing, in which we alternately follow the girl Huong and her grandmother Diệu Lan.
While the rest of the family has been scattered across the country, Huong and Diệu Lan tries to make it through the days with the help of stories. Huong disappears into books like Pinocchio and Treasure Island, or listens to her grandmother sharing her life story, where Nguyễn takes us through the history of Vietnam in the last hundred years, from a colony under Japan and the brutal reforms of the communist regime in the 1950s and through the horrific years of the Vietnam war. Is reconciliation at all possible after decades of abuse and with families torn apart?
Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai has published a number of poetry collections in Vietnamese, and in The Mountains Sing, her first novel in English, this background from poetry is clearly visible. She balances the dark story with a vivid and lyrical language, and through the novel’s chorus of voices, she challenges the black and white picture we know from history books and Hollywood movies. The novel has been met with critical acclaim, and won her the International Book Award and the PEN Oakland/ Josephine Miles Literary Award.
When Nguyễn visited the House of Literature, she was joined by translator and artistic advisor for the Norwegian Festival of Literature, Yukiko Duke, for a conversation about memories, reconciliation and Vietnam’s bloody history.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
In some other world, in some other life, Pinto might’ve prayed in the morning, prayed his šaharit, prayed to be relieved of his abhorrent passion. But the only prayer that came to his mind now was to the Lord to let him keep Osman for the rest of time, for his voice to be the last thing he would hear before slipping into la gran eskuridad.
Rafael Pinto is a young Jewish apothecary in Sarajevo, Bosnia, with big dreams and a penchant for opium. One summer day in 1914 he witnesses the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand, and suddenly Pinto is thrust into life as a soldier in the Great War. There he meets Osman, a handsome Muslim soldier who charms Pinto with his bravery and talent for storytelling, and between them blossoms a boundless love which shall follow them through the war and to the ends of the Earth.
Aleksandar Hemon’s The World and All That It Holds is a grandiose historical novel that combines historical fact with a rich and fabulous prose. With events set in a multicultural Europe in great social upheaval, Hemon deploys a distinctly lyrical prose, mixing in languages and expressions from all corners and cultures, showing a broad history and a multiform world. The result is a highly original, yet archetypal story of undying love and one man’s fight to save something worth living for as the world as he knows it is collapsing around him.
Bosnian American Aleksander Hemon is one of the most central authors of his generation. With novels such as The Lazarus Project and Nowhere Man, alongside his many short stories, Hemon has written himself into the contemporary American canon and garnered readers all over the world. This year, he returns with The World and All That It Holds, perhaps his most ambitious project yet.
In conversation with Hemon is renowned author, critic, and editor John Freeman. He has long followed Hemon’s career as a writer and metHemon on stage for a conversation on love in wartime and the explosive power of literature.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Mostrar más
