11/7/09 - HOW BOOKS CROSS BORDERS, November 6 and 7, 2009

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Reservations necessary: commentleslivres@inha.fr



FRiDAY 6TH NOVEMBER

14h00

Welcome : Antoinette Le Normand-Romain (INHA) and Maren Sell (SeA)


14h15- 15h45


Boris Hoffman, story of man, story of books
Boris Hoffman is little known to the general public. Like other artists-mediators, he worked in the shadows. This discussion will bring together his friends, colleagues and those who followed his work.


Also with Verena von der Heyden, writer and translator, Georges Hoffman, co-founder of the literary agency Hoffman; Eva Koralnikliterary agent (Agence Liepman) and Jean Mattern, publisher (Gallimard « Du monde entier »)

Reading of letters addressed to Boris Hoffman.
Presented by Gilles Collard



16h00-16h45

Screening of the film « L’Internationale de la Dissidence » directed by Georges Hoffman, 1987



17h00-18h00

East/West, mirror visions? Does “East-European literature” exist?
Seen from the West during the Cold War, literature of the European East appeared as a kind of obvious fact. It was nourished by the mystery of dissent, of the complicated travels of texts and of a more ancient tradition of the pre-1917 Russian novel. We will be trying to understand the construction of this imaginary by inverting the commonly accepted ideas.



With Vladimir Dimitriévitch, publisher (L'Age d'Homme) ;Vera Michalski, publisher (Libella) ; Ioana Popa, historian specializing in East-European literature; Anna Wasilewska,editor in charge of French literature at the Polish journal Literatura na swiecie.

Presented by : Lionel Ruffel



18h15-19h00

Historians of books, Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and Solzhenytsin’s The Goulag Archipelago
These two texts have joined the cannot on literature of East-European literary passage. How do books manage to cross borders? By virtue of both the stories they tell and the way in which they come to us: stories of friendships, complicities and thefts.

With Claude Durand, publisher ; Jacqueline de Proyart,translator ; Nikita Struve, publisher.

Presented by : Michel Crépu



After the discussion there will be a film screenig of the documentary “L’Histoire secrète de l’Archipel du goulag” (The Secret History of the Goulag Archipelago) by Nicolas Miletitch and Jean Crépu - France - 2008 - 52 mn 

SATURDAY 7th NOVEMBER

9h30-11h00


What does it mean to translate?
Art, technique, the whole of the processes which are far from being simply a common tool – four European thinkers will interrogate translation as the state of the world today.

A philosophical dialogue between the linguist Julia Kristeva,sociologist and philosopher Bruno Latour, lawyer and philosopher François Ost, and philosopher Peter Sloterdijk.

Presented by : Frédéric Pagès

11h15-12h00

Reading of "The Night When the Wall Fell"
German authors speaking about the night when the Wall fell. Individual accounts, sometimes outside of the main events, which are the proof of the capacity to change, calmly and wisely, to which the world bears witness.
Reading of the French translation of a collection of short stories, published by Inculte and translated by Marie Hermann.

Bilingual reading : Hanna Schygulla, Angela Winkler

Musical interlude
Hanna Schygulla et Angela Winkler, piano accompaniment.


14h30-16h

Frontiers and their crossing in today’s Europe: Where are the walls? In what space can texts circulate?

Have the walls disappeared since 1989? Blocks might have collapsed, the European Union might have extended its borders, globalization may be celebrated as the age of infinite traffic and exchange, yet other borders are being drawn and others walls built. What about literature in all this? What are the new modalities of circulation of works, new ways of passage??

With Oya Baydar, writer; Pascale Casanova, literary critic; Enzo Traverso, historian.

Presented by : François Cusset


16h15-17h45


Professions of literary mediation: how to help the circulation of works today?
This encounter began with the idea of the historical craftsman of literary passage: the literary agent. It further centers around the discussion which is also the raison d’etre of the Society of European Authors. How to contribute to the circulation of works in the 21st century? 


With Leyla Dakhli, Society of european authors; Tiphaine Samoyault, professor of comparative literature; Gisèle Sapiro,sociologist; Laura Seifert, Halma network, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.

Presented by: Isabelle Rabineau.

Musical improvisation by the group Chkrr based on the texts.   

Photograph: Thierry Buignet Berlin, Nordbahnhof, 2005

Graphical design: Pascal Bejean