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Nancy Campbell, Salvador Plascencia and Svenja Gräfen in conversation
This event takes place on June 8, 7 pm, at Galerie für Zeitgenössiche Kunst in Leipzig.
Samuel Fischer Guest Professor Nancy Campbell meets Picador Guest Professor Salvador Plascencia for a conversation about the art of writing and the interplay of design and literature. Svenja Gräfen hosts the conversation that will take place on June 8, 7 pm, at the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig.
Nancy Campbell is a Scottish writer, described by the former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy as ‘a deft, dangerous and dazzling poet writing from the furthest reaches of both history and climate change’. In 2020 she received the prestigious Ness Award from the Royal Geographical Society for her environmental writing, including works of non-fiction (“The Library of Ice”), poetry (“Disko Bay”) and artist’s books (“How to Say ‘I Love You’ in Greenlandic,” winner of the Birgit Skiöld Award). A memoir, Thunderstone, was published in summer 2022. Nancy’s writing has been commissioned by many arts and heritage organisations including the Royal Academy, the British Library, the BBC, the National Poetry Library and World Book Night.
Salvador Plascencia was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and grew up on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He is the author of the cult favorite “The People of Paper”, named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and Financial Times. “The People of Paper” has been translated into a dozen languages and widely anthologized and adopted in Chicanista, postmodern, and design courses. T.C. Boyle said, “The People of Paper is a novel like no other… Calvino, Borges, and García Márquez will come to mind, but Plascencia’s novel is a creature of its own, firmly grounded and soaring at the same time.” Plascencia’s writing has appeared in McSweeney's, Lucky Peach, Tin House, and the Los Angeles Times. He teaches fiction writing at Harvey Mudd College.
Svenja Gräfen is a novelist and non-fiction writer based in Leipzig. In 2017, their debut novel “Das Rauschen in unseren Köpfen” was published by Ullstein fünf. The second novel “Freiraum” followed 2019. Their first non-fiction book “Radikale Selbstfürsorge. Jetzt!” was published by Eden Books in 2021.
On Thursday, June 8, Nancy Campbell, Salvador Plascenciaand Svenja Gräfen talk about the art of writing and the interplay of design and literature. The conversation will be held in English. The entry is free.
The event is a collaboration between the Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship and the Picador Guest Professorship and takes part for the 25th anniversary celebration of the Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship. Partners of #sfischerprof are: Freie Universität Berlin, DAAD, S. Fischer and Holtzbrinck Berlin - Inspire Together.
"It muffles. It shrouds. Like the sheet a magician lays over their assistant before taking out the saw – when it is whisked away, the miracle is not that anything has changes, but rather that everything has stayed the same."
Nancy Campbell - Fifty Words for Snow
On Tuesday, June 20, Nancy Campbell and Florian Werner discuss The Library of Ice, language as a route into landscape, travel and stasis, dark tourism, endangered languages, the relationship between human and non-human animals, and the urgency to witness and record climate crisis. Conversation in English at the Literaturhaus Berlin.
Florian Werner studied English, American and German literature in Tübingen, Berlin and Aberdeen and received his doctorate with a thesis on hip-hop lyrics and the apocalyptic imagination. He writes creative nonfiction and prose, teaches as a guest lecturer at various universities and works for the radio. His books have been translated into numerous languages and have won several awards, among them the Literaturpreis Umwelt des Landes Brandenburg.
This reading is presented by the Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship for Literature in cooperation with the Literaturhaus Berlin. Partners of #sfischerprof are Freie Universität Berlin, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), S. Fischer and Holtzbrinck Berlin – Inspire Together.
News
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We are delighted to announce that Scottish writer Nancy Campbell will be the Samuel Fischer Guest Professor for the upcoming summer semester. On May 4, she will give her public lecture »Hot Metal Frozen Paper« at the Peter Szondi Institute for General and Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin. More information about the lecture is available here and you can find more information on Nancy Campbell here.
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