The inaugural Cairo Literature Festival is underway in the Egyptian capital and with panels on “Writings of Youth Writers in Central and Eastern Europe” and “Eastern Women Writing between Egypt and Europe”, among others, there are a number of Central European writers present at the festival
There actually aren’t any Eastern European writers there, unless you count Estonian Kätlin Kaldmaa, who isn’t on the “Writings of Youth Writers in Central and Eastern Europe” panel anyway, maybe because she isn’t a youth writer at 44, though I’m not sure what the cutoff line is for that obscure designation.
Read an interview with Kaldmaa here
Central European writers in attendance though include Czech Petra Hůlová, interviewed by me many years ago here and Slovak Monika Kompaníková, an excerpt of whose novel Boat Number Five, was just published in Words Without Borders in a translation by Janet Livingstone. They are on a panel entitled “Eastern Women Writing between Egypt and Europe”, which makes it sound like they do their daily writing in a room guarded by eunuchs while consuming large quantities of hashish.
There are writers from Hungary, Poland, Germany, Libya, Kuwait, the US, and elsewhere. The festival was opened by Orhan Pamuk.
Take a look at the full program here
Readux Series 5
The latest Readux series has been announced and the four books focus on “the continent’s two leading cities—by examining the places that are marginal, ignored, vacant, or destroyed.” Those two leading cities being Berlin and Paris. City Spaces by Annett Gröschner and The Idea of a River: Walking out of Berlin by Paul Scraton look at the German metropolis, while Suburban Wonder: Wandering the Margins of Paris by Francis Tabouret and A Little Guide to the 15th Arrondissement for the Use of Phantoms by Roger Caillois both cover unusual aspects of the French capital. As usual the book covers are phenomenal.
Click here and follow the links to read more about each book. The books will be released March 2nd.
Read one of the essays in Readux’s “Cities And City People” by Arthur Eloesser on Berlin at the turn of the 20th century in B O D Y here
Photo – From the cover of City Spaces by Annett Gröschner/Readux Books
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