Nino Haratischwili
(Tbilisi, 1983) had her breakthrough in 2014 with The Eight Life. In this award-winning, 1300-page family epic, the Hamburg-based Georgian writer tells the story of the fictitious Georgian Jasji family. She takes the reader to the Soviet Union, in particular during the dramatic years when Georgian-born tyrant Stalin was in power. She also takes the reader to the Swinging London of the 1960s and '70s, to the Prague Rebellion of 1968 and to the Caucasus, the area where she is from. Despite all the horrors she describes, it is not a terrible book but rather a tragicomic fairy tale with malicious traits. The main theme is the question of whether destiny still matters, even here and now in the West. Haratischwili made her debut in 2010 with Juja, followed by Mein sanfter Zwilling (My Gentle Twin) in 2011. She studied film directing in Tbilisi and theatre directing in Hamburg. Her plays have won many awards.
(2017)Archive available for: Nino Haratischwili
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Postponed: Eastern Europe and beyond
With: Lisa Weeda, Nino Haratischwili, Sophie Derkzen
Postponed due to measures against the coronavirus. We are exploring the possibility of presenting the program online or at a later point in time. We will inform you by our newsletter and social media.
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The Georgian-Ukrainian Connection: talking about family, roots and defining moments in history with the Hamburg-based Georgian writer Nino Haratischwili and Dutch-Ukrainian writer Lisa Weeda. Haratischwili had her breakthrough in 2014 with The Eight Life, in her latest novel The Cat and the General, she writes about the Chechen wars. In 2016 Petrovsky's Legs by Lisa Weeda was released, the literary reflection of two trips she made to and through Ukraine. Last year Weeda directed the VR production ROZSYPNE about the war zone in Ukraine. English spoken.Moderator: Sophie Derkzen
Program curated by Ilonka Reintjens (Writers Unlimited)
Books for sale courtesy of De Vries Van Stockum Books -
Books Unlimited: Nino Haratischwili and Alain Mabanckou
A unique opportunity to meet two international literary stars and hear about their books, which have recently become available in the Netherlands. Lisa Weeda, writer and professor at ArtEZ School for the Arts, goes one on one for a half hour each with Nino Haratischwili (Germany/Georgia) and Alain Mabanckou (Republic of Congo) about their motivation to write, the source of their characters, and the worldwide success of their books.
Haratischwili had an international breakthrough in 2014 with The Eighth Life (for Brilka). In this award-winning, 1300-page epic, the Hamburg-based Georgian writer tells the story of the fictitious Georgian Jasji family.
The lastest book by Congolese novelist Mabanckou is Petit Piment, translated into English in 2017 with the title Black Moses. It humorously describes the life of a boy who escapes the strict regime of an orphanage to move to the coastal city of Pointe-Noire, where he lives among thieves and whores.
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Ode to Joy
Schiller's idealistic poem about Europe and humanity, adapted to the here and now! Writers Unlimited asked seven writers and poets each to write their own Ode to Joy. This evening they presented their newly written works.
Participants at this Odes 2.0 were Nino Haratischwili, Magda Cârneci, Sanam Sheriff, Efe Murad, Grazyna Plebanek, Gustaaf Peek. Ghayath Almadhoun and Charlotte Van den Broeck. They recited their work in their mother tongues, with simultaneous projections of Dutch and/or English translations. Classical accordionist Oleg Lysenko, Cellist Elisabeth Sturtewagen and soprano Jole De Baerdemaeker provided musical accompaniment.
Originally written in 1785, Schiller's Ode to Joy lives on because Ludwig van Beethoven added one of its stanzas to the finale (for choir and soloists) of his Ninth Symphony. In 1985, the European Union Chose this particular segment - albeit in wordless form - as the official hymn of the EU. In the poem, Schiller transmits the ideal of a world in which all people live in brotherhood.
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Égalité! The Legacy of the Soviets
Equality reconsidered: in the 20th century, the Soviet Union added a strange flavour to the second ideal of the French Revolution. Equality reduced to the repression and monotony of state socialism and the dullness of old Ladas.
Writers Unlimited investigates the value of equality as a European ideal in the framework of the intellectual legacy of Karl Marx*. What can we learn from the socialist era in Central and Eastern Europe? Can Marx remain a fount of inspiration after the Soviet debacle?
In his revolutionary pamphlet Resist! (Querido, 2017), novelist Gustaaf Peek proposes that, after thirty years of capitalist domination, it is high time to aim for equality and to reconsider and reevaluate a communist-style redistribution of wealth.
He discussed this subject with the Georgian-German writer Nino Haratischwili and the Romanian poet and essayist Magda Carneci. Professor and essayist Paul Scheffer moderated the conversation. Classical accordionist Oleg Lysenko and his trio provided music.
*More Marx? During Saturday Night Unlimited, Winternachten festival screened the Dutch premiere of The Young Karl Marx by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, whose earlier successful documentary I Am Not Your Negro focused on writer James Baldwin. His feature film is an intense reimagination of the birth of communism and the meeting of Marx and Engels.