Winternachten Lecture - Nuruddin Farah

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‘Nuruddin Farah poses questions which, once asked, don't give you a moment's rest, the American weekly Newsweek wrote about the Somali author. Nuruddin Farah (1945) delivered the annual Winternachten lecture, which was organised for the third time. He spoke about migration and exile, a topic which as a writer has occupied him for a long time. You can download the lecture as a pdf-file here.

Farah describes how the situation of young migrants round 1970 – who wanted nothing but assimilate fully – differs painfully of that of young migrants today. In his lecture he asks an urgent question about identity: what makes us into who we are? Is it the country we come from, the language we speak, the culture we were raised in or the passport we carry? Or is it a coincidental process that makes us into who we are? Farah painstakingly queries what the Somali identity means to someone like himself, who has lived in half a dozen countries.
Nuruddin Farah is seen by many as the most important African candidate for the Nobel prize for Literature. In 1998 he was recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. Seven of his books appeared in Dutch, among them Secrets and Maps. The translation of Links will be published in 2009. Farah lives in Cape Town.

Kristien Hemmerechts (Brussels, 1955) gave an introduction on Farahs work and talked to him after his lecture. Hemmerechts is a novelist, travel writer, essayist and script writer. Her novels include Ann, and Taal zonder mij (Language without me). As a writer she actively participates in the public debate in Flanders and the Netherlands.
Previous Winternachten lecturers include Elif Shafak (2008) and Pankaj Mishra (2007).

Visitors of the Winternachten lecture received the publication in English and Dutch.
You can order the publication for € 5,- + postal charges by sending an email with your name and full adress, to info@writersunlimited.nl. We will send it to you with an invoice of € 5,- plus shipping costs.

Stichting DOEN supported the Winternachten lecture 2009 as international writers here get a chance to share their views with their counterparts at the festival and with a varied audience. So new insights arise, contributing to the social debate in the Netherlands. DOEN supports the Winternachten lecture 2009 with a grant from the Nationale Postcode Loterij.

Information

Date and time Thursday 15 January 2009 from 20:00 to 22:15 hrs
Location Nieuwe Kerk

Line-up

Nuruddin Farah

Nuruddin Farah (Somalia, 1945) is regarded by many as the most important African candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature. Although he left Somalia in 1970, his native country occupies center stage in all his books. Except for the lengthy dictatorship and bloody civil war which destroyed the country, he writes about women’s rights, the relationship between Islam and pre-Islamic traditions. The core of his oeuvre is formed by his novel trilogies: ‘Variations on the theme of an African Dictatorship’, consisting of Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Sardines (1981) and Close Sesame (1982); and ‘Blood in the Sun’, formed by Maps (86), Gifts (1990) and Secrets (1998). Right now he is working on the final part of his third trilogy, already consisting of Links (2007) and Knots (2008). In his recent work exiles return to a warstricken Mogadishu. Farah also wrote a non-fiction book with testimonies of Somali refugees: Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (2000). In 1998 he was recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. His work has been translated in seventeen languages and seven of his books have appeared in Dutch, among others Secrets and Maps. The translation of Links will appear in 2009. Farah lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Kristien Hemmerechts

(Belgium, 1955) writes widely on wide-ranging topics, from poetry about her late husband Herman de Coninck in Taal zonder mij (Language without Me, 1998) to the struggle of an anorexia patient in her book Ann (2008). The human condition is always central to her extensive oeuvre. Her work also pays a noticeable amount of attention to the female sexual experience. In her novel De waar gebeurde geschiedenis van Victor en Clara Rooze (The True History of Victor and Clara Rooze), Hemmerechts plays with fact and fiction: a writer with writer's block tackles a story of incest to give free reign to her thoughts about writing and literature. Haar Bloed (Her Blood) appeared in 2012, for which she spent time in a hematology ward. In 2014 she caused an uproar with De vrouw die de honden eten gaf (The Woman Who Fed the Dogs), a novel inspired by the Dutroux case. Her latest novel Alles verandert (Everything Changes) closely follows the plot of J.M. Coetzee's In Ongenade (Disgrace), but with a female protagonist. How much does the gender of literary characters determine our view of their actions?
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Sams

(St Eustasius, 1955) is a singer, composer, percussionist and ngoni player. At first he played and sang only in reggae bands but in the 1980s he fell under the spell of djembé music. To improve his technique he travelled to Africa regularly to practise with the great masters of djembé music. During one of his first travels he heard the sound of the ngoni, and he learned to play this instrument as well. The ngoni is one of the oldest string instruments of Africa, made of a gourd, a piece of wood and fishing line. Sams subsequently founded his own ngoni band and concentrated on African music. In the meantime he has returned to his old love, reggae. Sams performs regularly at home and abroad with Sams Reggae band and Sams N’goni band. He also gives djembé workshops at schools.
During Winternachten 2009, on Saturday afternoon, he will perform together with his brother, the base player, and with the inseparable steelpan duo Cornel Brown and Leroy James, all from Statia.
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