The Seminar programme - Bok & Bibliotek

PHoTo: HisToRisKa media
PHoTo: iBRaHim aHmed
PHoTo: PRiVaTe
PHoTo: PRiVaTe
THuRsdaY
Catherine merridale
lubna ahmad al-Hussein
ousmane diarra
lesego Rampolokeng
12
12
12.00–12.45 Code To1200.4
Catherine Merridale
The truth about the Red Army
Approximately 8.6 million Soviet soldiers – nearly
a third of everyone who served in the Red Army –
lost their lives in the Second World War. Red Army
soldiers were nicknamed Ivan, and the victory over
the Nazis cost them dearly. But after the war Stalin
chose to conceal their hardships. Instead, the myth
of the well trained patriotic soldier, who fought for
his country, Communism and Stalin, was carefully
cultivated. In Ivan’s War: The Red Army, 1939–1945,
the prizewinning author and professor Catherine
Merridale uncovers a different reality. Interviews
with Russian war veterans and material taken from
previously closed archives show that the typical
soldier was a young uneducated peasant forced to
join the military, where he survived an average of 24
hours when the battle was at its height.
Moderator: Peter Whitebrook, journalist.
Language: English
In coop with Historiska Media
13.00–13.45 Code To1300.5
Where are Africa’s books for children?
Pictures of Africa 1
What are they about and who reads them? Meet
four authors from southern and western Africa in a
conversation with the South African children’s book
expert Jay Heale about the state of children’s and
young adult books, now and in the future. Participants:
Meshack Asare, Ghana, Lesley Beake, South
Africa, Ousmane Diarra, Mali and Fatou Keïta,
Côte d’Ivoire.
Language: English
In coop with Children Africa 2010, The Secret Garden Network, Afrikultur, Trasten/
Tranan Publishing House and the Association of French Teachers, Stockholm
13.00–13.45 Code To1300.7
Lesego Rampolokeng, Tolu Ogunlesi
LAND OF WORDS – popular culture, tradition,
modernism
Lesego Rampolokeng is a poet, musician, playwright
and spoken word poet. As one critic commented:
“Reading him means discovering a new
territory of language, just like entering a new physical
territory. You don’t escape unscathed.” He is a
keen observer of power and injustice in South Africa
and worldwide. He began to write as a 14 year old,
gathering impressions everywhere from the streets
of Soweto, the music of the Caribbean, Apollinaire,
Pasolini, Artaud, writers who understand that words
and art can shake up the foundations of society. He
meets the young Nigerian poet Tolu Ogunlesi. The
moderator is Gunnar D Hansson, poet and associate
professor of comparative literature at the University
of Gothenburg.
Language: English
In coop with Africa 2010
14.00–14.45 Code To1400.9
Lubna Ahmad al-Hussein
When trousers are a crime
On the 3rd July in 2009, Lubna Ahmad al-Hussein
was arrested by the police at a restaurant in Khartoum.
Her “crime”: she was dressed in trousers. The
Sudanese law punishes this “obscene act” with forty
lashes and a fine. Every day women in Sudan are
sentenced for offences against paragraph 152 in the
penal code. Lubna Ahmad al-Hussein decided to
protest, for the sake of all women, and to publicize
her case worldwide. Forty lashes for a pair of trousers
is a personal testimony which offers a history of
a country weighed down by the double burden of
Sharia law and the old traditions of the country. A
country where female circumcision is common and
where the guards of morality stand watch on every
street corner.
Moderator: Dilsa Demirbag-Sten, journalist.
Language: Arabic translated into Swedish
In coop with Sekwa
14.00–14.45 Code To1400.10
Gundega Repše, Ieva Lešinska
Back to the Future
In Gundega Repše’s novel Alvas kliedziens [The
Scream of Tin], based on her own school day diaries,
and in Pauls Bankovkis’ short story collection
Skola [School], the authors go back to the future.
That is to say, they return to the utopia of Soviet occupied
Riga in the 1970s. Both books are published
in Swedish translation this autumn and offer a link
to the novels of Herta Müller and Sofi Oksanen.
They provide detailed insights into Eastern European
realities, as yet are unknown in the west. Such
insights are crucial for the creation of a European
intellectual equilibrium. But the memory of this
“future” is in the process of being lost even in the
affected countries. Gundega Repše and the cultural
journalist Ieva Lešinska discuss different aspects of
these issues.
Moderator: Juris Kronbergs, author.
Language: English
In coop with Latvian Literature Centre
Children africa 2010
• The secret Garden is a network
founded seven years ago in order to
promote children's literature from africa,
asia, latin america and the middle east in
sweden. This year the
focus is on africa and
20 authors, illustrators,
storytellers and others
are invited to the
20
Göteborg Book Fair. in
honour of the occasion,
a collection of articles,
essays, poems, portraits and many pictures
will be published in a booklet entitled The
Secret Garden – Africa. The international
library, iBBY sweden, The swedish library
association and the World library at the
solidarity House in stockholm are the
current active members of the network.