Writers In Conversation: On Migration, Language and the Stories of Our Lives
Linnea Axelsson, Art Scholar & Author; Aleksandar Hemon, Lewis Center for the Arts; Saskia Vogel, PIIRS Translator in Residence; Moderated by John Freeman, Writer and Editor
September 20, 2022 · 4:30 pm—6:00 pm · A17 Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building
Program in Translation & Intercultural Communication; Lewis Center for the Arts Program in Creative Writing; Department of Comparative Literature
Is language a “place” you call home? How do migratory patterns influence the stories we tell?
Sámi-Swedish writer Linnea Axelsson, Professor of Creative Writing Aleksandar Hemon, and Translator-in-Residence Saskia Vogel join editor, critic and poet John Freeman in conversation and with short readings from their recent works.
Axelsson’s forthcoming American debut Aednan, in Vogel’s translation and edited by Freeman for Knopf, is an epic multigenerational poem about a Sámi family’s quest to stay together across a century of migration and Swedish settler colonialism.
Migratory patterns, too, are a theme in Hemon’s work, from his writing on his parents’ immigration from Sarajevo to Canada to the experience of not having a country to call your own, and so finding a home in language.
Join us for a wide-reaching conversation on how we shape the stories of our lives.
