‘Often, we the natives of the Balkans or the Middle East, with our extraordinarily polyphonic histories and hurts, are narrated by others – usually others from the dominant colonising cultures.’
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Channeling the rage: an interview with Meena Kandasamy
‘I think that the creation of an equal, just society is impossible under capitalism, which is why we need to learn from the mistakes of the past and imagine other ways of living. I think understanding caste, class, race inequalities is fundamental to any understanding of women’s struggle.’
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Not permanent, but real: a conversation with Selva Almada
‘Charismatic and powerful men, at least in our societies, see their role as looking after their own interests rather than serving others. That’s how it is, and more and more so as neoliberalism takes hold of our governments.’
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Blood on its hands: a conversation with Robert Menasse
I don’t want anyone to think that I’m an artist one day and an activist the next. When I get politically involved, I do so as an artist. That is important to me.
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No time for arrogance: a conversation with Ece Temelkuran
It has become the motto of our age to say, ‘Oh I hate politics’ – without realising that that is the most political statement you can come up with.
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Normality is fiction: a conversation with Samanta Schweblin
I think fiction starts with something really unusual. We keep trying to be normal, day after day, but normality is a fiction. It is a space between you and me, but there is nobody who occupies that space.
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Silence as communication: a conversation with Elias Khoury
‘This novel is structured around the relationship between silence and speaking. Silence is the major hero. People who have gone through terrible trauma don’t want to remember. It all needed time to come out, and now things are coming out.’
Read MoreThe blind and the elephant: a conversation with Ahmed Saadawi and Jonathan Wright
‘People will fight another to assert the truth of their story. Novels tell us that in fact there isn’t one story. Everybody has a piece of a true story. It is like the story of the blind people and the elephant.’
Read MoreNature bubbling out: a conversation with Mahvash Sabet
I never consciously make a decision about what to say in a poem: the poem itself says itself. So the poem happens. It doesn’t happen because I have decided that it should happen. It wasn’t a conscious decision to write about nature. The nature just bubbled out.
Read MoreThe past is a dimension of the present: a conversation with Javier Cercas
‘I’m not interested in history itself. I’m interested in the past that has not passed.’
Read MoreThe past and the present side by side: a conversation with Peter Kimani
I am contesting the validity of history as we know it, because what is recorded is never told from the perspective of the victim, it is always the victor.
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On the move: a conversation with Olga Tokarczuk
The concept of a ‘nation’ doesn’t have the power to describe the contemporary identity of people living in the world. We should look for other ideas to describe us as a collective, as a group, as a society.
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Unpredictable transgression: a conversation with Ariana Harwicz
To write thinking of a novel’s reception and anticipating that it will be of interest is an idea of hell, a betrayal.
Read MoreA conversation with Vigdis Hjorth
We have to work on two fronts. We have to do something about the structures, and we also have to help the individual.
Read MoreA conversation with Dorthe Nors
You become an estranged human being, which leads to a certain kind of solitude and loneliness.
Read MoreA conversation with Mohsin Hamid
‘Even if you’re 75 years old and haven’t left the city you’ve grown up in, you have migrated through time. To me, it feels like the theme of being human is being a migrant.’
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