Magda Cârneci
(Romania, 1955) wants to connect people and ideas with her poetry and work. Her volume Chaosmos, translated into Dutch, is about a chaotic world that is highly ordered in a larger cosmic sense: thus, a chaosmos. Cârneci studied art history in Paris and is one of the leading members of the Romanian 1980s Generation. After the 1989 revolution that finished off Ceaușescu's communist reign, she became active in Romanian political and cultural life. She later moved to Paris, where she became Director of the Romanian Cultural Institute and a member of the European Cultural Parliament. Cârneci is chair of the Grupul pentru Dialog Social (GDS), a Romanian NGO that aims to protect democracy, human rights and civil rights. She is also the chair of PEN-Romania and editor-in-chief of Revista ARTA. Her work has been translated into French and English.
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Archive available for: Magda Cârneci
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World Storytelling in ISS
With: Çağlar Köseoğlu, Efe Murad, Kees Biekart, Magda Cârneci, Mira Feticu
Listen to stories from near and far. They were told by African, Latin American and Asian students from the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, as well as by four Winternachten festival guests: poets Efe Murad (Turkey), Magda Cârneci (Romania), Mira Feticu (Netherlands) and Çaglar Köseoglu (Netherlands) who contributed with stories about writing poems in revolutionary times. Kees Biekart, Associate Professor in Political Sociology at ISS, hosted the conversations. English spoken.
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Book of my Life: Magda Cârneci
Writers talks about their favourite book - the book that inspires or moves them; the book that formed their aristic, moral or intellectual compass; the book that they would recommend to anyone.
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The Rage of Europe - about the innermost outsiders of Europe
Rage is wafting around Europe. Rage in many forms and voices, but perhaps also from a common source. Led by author and cultural historian David Van Reybrouck, writers from various European cities delineate and interpret this rage from their own environments and perspectives.
Some Europeans think that our continent is denying its origins and heading towards cultural suicide by opening itself to the culture of strangers. Others believe that Europe is mired in colonial reflexes and prejudices, and falls short in terms of welcoming new citizens. Yet others see only a Europe of interference and technocracy, bereft of passion, imagination and democratic vitality.
Multitalented author and playwright Van Reybrouck wrote high-profile books such as Congo: A history, and essays such as "A Plea for Populism" and "Against Elections". Fatma Aydemir's debut novel Ellbogen (Elbow), about escalating violence in the U-Bahn, recently divided critics and readers in Germany. Grazyna Plebanek, originally from Warsaw, lived in Stockholm for a few years and in Brussels since 2005, where she works as a journalist and writer of short stories and novels. Until 1989, art historian, poet and essayist Magda Carneci published under a pseudonym in Bucharest; these days, she is, among others, Editor of Revista ARTA.
As counterpoints, Rodaan Al Galidi recites some of his poems, Gerda Dendooven creates illustrations and Stefka and Amer Shanati play their music.
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Ode to Joy
Schiller's idealistic poem about Europe and humanity, adapted to the here and now! Writers Unlimited asked seven writers and poets each to write their own Ode to Joy. This evening they presented their newly written works.
Participants at this Odes 2.0 were Nino Haratischwili, Magda Cârneci, Sanam Sheriff, Efe Murad, Grazyna Plebanek, Gustaaf Peek. Ghayath Almadhoun and Charlotte Van den Broeck. They recited their work in their mother tongues, with simultaneous projections of Dutch and/or English translations. Classical accordionist Oleg Lysenko, Cellist Elisabeth Sturtewagen and soprano Jole De Baerdemaeker provided musical accompaniment.
Originally written in 1785, Schiller's Ode to Joy lives on because Ludwig van Beethoven added one of its stanzas to the finale (for choir and soloists) of his Ninth Symphony. In 1985, the European Union Chose this particular segment - albeit in wordless form - as the official hymn of the EU. In the poem, Schiller transmits the ideal of a world in which all people live in brotherhood.
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Égalité! The Legacy of the Soviets
Equality reconsidered: in the 20th century, the Soviet Union added a strange flavour to the second ideal of the French Revolution. Equality reduced to the repression and monotony of state socialism and the dullness of old Ladas.
Writers Unlimited investigates the value of equality as a European ideal in the framework of the intellectual legacy of Karl Marx*. What can we learn from the socialist era in Central and Eastern Europe? Can Marx remain a fount of inspiration after the Soviet debacle?
In his revolutionary pamphlet Resist! (Querido, 2017), novelist Gustaaf Peek proposes that, after thirty years of capitalist domination, it is high time to aim for equality and to reconsider and reevaluate a communist-style redistribution of wealth.
He discussed this subject with the Georgian-German writer Nino Haratischwili and the Romanian poet and essayist Magda Carneci. Professor and essayist Paul Scheffer moderated the conversation. Classical accordionist Oleg Lysenko and his trio provided music.
*More Marx? During Saturday Night Unlimited, Winternachten festival screened the Dutch premiere of The Young Karl Marx by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, whose earlier successful documentary I Am Not Your Negro focused on writer James Baldwin. His feature film is an intense reimagination of the birth of communism and the meeting of Marx and Engels.
