Passa Porta Literature Festival, 2013
Brussels Trams - by Catherine Antoine
Brussels Trams - by Catherine Antoine
Brussels Trams - by Catherine Antoine
Brussels Trams - by Catherine Antoine- Brussels Trams - by Catherine Antoine
The 2013 Passa Porta Literature festival focusses on Arab writing. Literature Across Frontiers is co-operating on a number of events which will range across reports from the ‘Arab Spring’, writing for peace and freedom of expression as well as a feature on the Tramlines project. www.passaporta.be.
On 20th March the Algerian author Boualem Sansal will open the festival with an appeal for a more imaginative society and the need to dream. Though banned in Algeria, his powerful literary oeuvre has been translated and won international acclaim. The founder of the world-wide Writers for Peace movement, he will also be talking on 21 March with Chinese author Liao Yiwu, who recently published an impressive account of four years spent in a Chinese jail.
Arab Spring, Arab awakening or Arab revolution?
On 22 March five prominent Arab authors testify about the upheavals that are currently changing their societies and influencing their writing. Among them is Syrian dissident Khaled Khalifa (In Praise of Hatred, 2008), who lives in Aleppo but will stay in Brussels for a 5-week literary residence at Passa Porta. He will join Khaled Al Khamissi (Egypt), Ibrahim Al-Koni (Libya), Raja Ben Slama (Tunisia) and Boualem Sansal (Algeria).
On 23 March the Passa Porta Festival stages the second Long Night of the Short Story, this time round at the Flagey Arts Centre. World-famous authors from home and abroad, such as Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco), Lydia Davis (USA), Gerard Donovan (Ireland), Anne Enright (Ireland), Arnon Grunberg (Netherlands), Kristien Hemmerechts (Belgium), Pierre Mertens (Belgium) and Enrique Vila-Matas (Spain), will present their best short stories.
Find out more about the full programme on the Passa Porta website: www.passaporta.be
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