BIBLIOTOPIA 2022
week-end of world literature

Colombe Boncenne is a French novelist and a literary consultant at the Maison de la poésie in Paris and Les Correspondances de Manosque. Comme neige (2016, Prix Fénéon) and Vue mer (2020) explore complex social relations, while Des sirènes (2022) focuses on an intimate relationship between mother and daughter.

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo is a French writer. His novels have been widely translated and include Une éducation libertine (2008, Prix Goncourt for the first novel), Pornographia (2013, Prix Sade), Le règne animal (2016, Prix du livre Inter 2017) which appeared in English as Animalia (2019, translated by Frank Wynn), and Le fils de l’homme (2021), soon to be published in English. His writing often explores the transmission of violence between generations.

Clara Dupont-Monod is a French writer and literary critic. She has written several novels: Eova Luciole (1998), La passion selon Juette (2007), Nestor rend les armes (2011), La révolte (2018) and S’adapter (2021, Prix Femina and Prix Goncourt des lycéens), as well as a work of non-fiction: Histoire d’une prostituée (2003). Her writing often explores overlooked and marginalised figures.

Georgi Gospodinov is a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright. His work, translated into more than forty languages, has received many national and international awards. In Natural Novel (1999, translated by Zornitsa Hristova), The Physics of Sorrow (2011, 2016 Jan Michalski Prize) and Time Shelter (2022), both translated by Angela Rodel, he uses powerfully inventive language to explore individual and collective memory and to question the future of humanity.

Philippe Grimbert is a French psychoanalyst and writer. He has written many works of non-fiction and fiction, out of which La petite robe de Paul (2001), Un secret (2004, Prix Goncourt des lycéens) and La mauvaise rencontre (2009) were adapted for screen and theatre. Un secret was also translated into English by Polly McLean in 2012. In his most recent novel, Les morts ne nous aiment plus (2021), he explores grief, therapy and Artificial Intelligence.

Kapka Kassabova is a Bulgarian and British poet, novelist and writer of non-fiction. Her two most recent books: Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (2017, British Academy’s Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year, the Stanford-Dolman Travel Book of the Year) and To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace (2020) are a magical mixture of travelogue, history and family memoir, connecting people to places.

Salomé Kiner is a journalist, novelist and a literary critic. She wrote reportages from around the world before settling in Switzerland, where she has worked for Le Temps and the Radio Télévision Suisse. Her first novel, Grande couronne (2021, Prix Zadig, shortlisted Prix Inter 2022), gives a poignant portrait of an adolescent who faces the difficulties of growing up from the allure of consumerism, and her mother’s depression to brutal confrontation with sexuality.

Andrey Kurkov, a Ukrainian writer who writes in Russian, is known all over the world since the publication of his Death and the Penguin (2000, translated into English by George Bird). His latest novel, Grey Bees (2018, translated by Borys Draluyk), published just after the war started, follows the adventures of two old enemies since their schooldays, who, alone in the deserted village on the battle line in Donbass, start to work together. He also comments daily on Twitter about developments in Ukraine. 

Long Litt Woon is a Malaysian and Norwegian writer and anthropologist who has been living in Norway since university. Following the death of her husband, she wrote her first work of non-fiction, The Way through the Woods: Overcoming grief through nature (2019, translated by Barbara Haveland). The book traces her grief and the discovery of the world of mycology, which brings her unexpected joy and helps her heal.

Katherine May, British author and podcaster, a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, including The Electricity of Every Living Thing (2021) and The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club (2018) is compelled by how the wild landscapes can benefit our mental and emotional wellbeing. Wintering (2020), translated into twenty languages, became The New York Times bestseller and describes the benefits of the fallow period at difficult times before reemerging into life.

Nathalie Piégay is a French writer and a professor of 20th century French literature at the University of Geneva, specialist at Louis Aragon, Claude Simon, Robert Pinget amongst others. Her novels include Une femme invisible (2018) devoted to Louis Aragon’s mother and La petite ceinture (2020). Her memoir, Le caillou noir (2022), focuses on the final period of her mother’s life.

Rene Prêtre is a Swiss paediatric heart surgeon. He practiced in New York, London, Paris and Zurich, and is now Head of the cardiovascular service in Lausanne (CHUV) and of paediatric cardiac surgery in Geneva (HUG). In 2006 he created Le Petit Cœur, a foundation devoted to humanitarian projects. Et au centre bat le cœur (2016) follows his work, with its doubts and hopes, many successes and some defeats.

Jean-Christophe Rufin, a French doctor, diplomat, globetrotter, novelist and member of the Académie française, is widely involved both in the world of literature and humanitarian action. History, politics and otherness are at the heart of his many novels from The Abyssinian (1999), Brazil Red (2004, Prix Goncourt), both translated by Willard Wood, to Red Collar (2015, translated by Adriana Hunter). Les Flammes de Pierre explores the redemptive power of the mountains.

Sjón is Icelandic writer, poet, artist and songwriter for Bjork, amongst others. His novels and poetry collections were translated into more than thirty languages and were awarded the 2005 Nordic Council’s Literature Prize and the 2013 Icelandic Literary Prize. Red Milk, his most recent book in English (2021, translated by Victoria Cribb), constructs a portrait of an ordinary young man who becomes a right-wing zealot.

Gonçalo M. Tavares, a prize-winning Portuguese writer and professor of epistemology, awarded the Saramago Prize, is seen as one of the main voices of lusophone literature. His many works including novels, poetry, plays, and essays have been translated into over fifty languages. Plague Diary (2022, translated by Daniel Hahn) artfully records the experience of the early period of the Covid pandemic with illuminating, insightful and poignant reflections and observations.  

Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish journalist, novelist, writer and political commentator currently living in exile. Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde diplomatique and Der Spiegel, amongst others. Her most recent works How to Lose a Country (2019) and Together: 10 Choices for a Better Now (2021), provide an insightful and urgent political and sociological analysis and a passionate call to action.

Serhiy Zhadan is multitalented - a writer, musician, rock star, and translator of Bukowski - and is one of the most important Ukrainian novelists of his generation. His books published in English include Voroshilovgrad (The Road to Donbass, 2013), which won the Jan Michalski Prize, and most recently, The Orphanage (2017), both translated by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler and Reilly Costigan-Humes. Politically engaged, he participated in Euromaidan in 2014, and since February has been defending Kharkiv against the Russian invasion. 

The English to French and French to English events will be interpreted by Starr Pirot and Alia Rahal.

The Portuguese to French and French to Portuguese event will be interpreted by Melanie Roe and Jérémy Engel.

The Ukrainian to French and French to Ukrainian event will be interpreted by Antonina Guryanova and Yana Kanaan.

Colombe Boncenne © D.R | Jean-Baptiste Del Amo © Francesca Mantovani | Clara Dupont-Monod © Olivier Roller | Guéorgui Gospodinov © Phelia Baruh | Philippe Grimbert © D.R | Kapka Kassabova © Chloé Vollmer-Lo | Salomé Kiner © Marie Taillefer | Long Litt Woon © D.R | Katherine May © D.R | Nathalie Piégay © D.R | René Prêtre © Gaëtan Bally Jean-Christophe Rufin © Francesca Mantovani | Sjón © Kamba Danielsson | Gonçalo M. Tavares © Rachel Caiano | Ece Temelkuran © D.R