15. Sep 2012

Dubravka Ugresic to hold the 2012 ICORN Lecture at the Kapittel 12 festival

Dubravka Ugresic. Photo — Dubravka Ugresic

The acclaimed Croatian writer and thinker Dubravka Ugresic will hold this year's ICORN lecture at the Kapittel 12 Stavanger International Festival for Literature and Freedom of Speech, to be organized from 19-23 September 2012.

The festival theme is SCARS, and Ms. Ugresic, who has been living in exile for decades, will speak about scars of the Balkans, European scars and about how scars of history are shaping our identities.

Marion Stalens' new documentary film Silence or Exile is also among the highlights of the Kapittel 12 programme. Three of the writers profiled in the film, Ma Jian (China/London), Svetlana Aleksievitch (Belarus/Berlin) and Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador/Iowa City) will take part in a discussion under the title Scars of Exile preceeding the film.

The current ICORN guest writer in Stavanger Nadia Norwan (Afghanistan) will read her own poetry in Norwegian during the opening ceremony of the festival, while former guest writer Mansur Rajih (Yemen) is concluding the festival with the premiere of a concert based on his poetry, composed and performed by acclaimed Norwegian singer/composer Liv Runesdatter.

All ICORN related events are organized in cooperation with the Shahrazad - stories for life project.