Swedish-American writer Alvina Chamberland is a guest at The Lighthouse Book Club! De Haagse Hogeschool's English-language book club has read her novel Love the World or Get Killed Trying and will discuss it with her. You can attend!

The interview will be led by Suzy Byczuk, European Studies student at the The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This is a free-access event open to all students, staff and all interested, even if you are not a book club member. Please register first.

Through poetic prose, sharp social commentary and self-deprecating gallows humor her novel Love the World or Get Killed Trying dives into the mind of Alvina, a trans woman on the eve of turning 30. The reader follows her journey through the wilderness of Iceland and city boulevards of Berlin and Paris as she probes questions of eternity, sexuality, longing, death, love, and how hard it is to remain soft when you're a ceaseless target of straight men's secret lust and open disgust.

Alvina Chamberland (USA) is a Swedish-American author of predominantly literary autofiction novels, residing between Athens and Berlin. She has an MA in gender studies from Södertörns University Stockholm, with a thesis on trans feminine sisterhood and intersectionality in New York City. In 2015 she published in Sweden her co-authored book Allt som är Mitt: Våldtäkt, Stigmatisering och Upprättelse (All that is mine: Rape, Stigmatization and Reparation). In September 2018 her novel Utelåst – Uppväxt- nostalgi för freaks (Locked Out – A nostalgic account of growing up for freaks) a parody of the coming of age-genre, was published. Love the World or Get Killed Trying (2024) is her English language debut novel.

Festival tip: during the grand festival event Saturday Night Unlimited, 25 January 2025 on five stages of Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag, Alvina Chamberland will perform in the subprogramme Trans, Writing, Joy, a celebration of gender, literature and creative energy with authors Alara Adilow, Alvina Chamberland and Zaire Krieger, host: Alejandra Ortiz.

(Trans) Authors from various parts of the world will read from their work and talk about in what way these concepts define their work and their lives. After the discussion the venue will be turned into a 'Room of Joy', with music, dance and celebration of everyone's uniqueness. Feel free to dance along! English spoken. Order here your tickets for Saturday Night Unlimited via the online box office of Het Nationale Theater (Up to 30 years 15 Euro, up from 31 years 35 Euro).