Imre Kertész and Aharon Appelfeld: from the first generation of witnesses to the 9th art art From one generation to another: the writing of great witnesses

Thursday 16 March 2017 at 7:30 pm
© Mémorial de la Shoah

© Shoah Memorial

Some witnesses wrote immediately after the war, creating a de facto literary genre. Others, later, have shed light on renewed aspects of the genocidal process and its aftermath. Over time, the public has discovered the works of Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Imre Kertész, Aharon Appelfeld, Charlotte Delbo and other great founding texts. How did these works influence our contemporaries and why did they become classics?

During this meeting, Catherine Coquio will evoke the way in which Imre Kertész and Aharon Appelfeld, through their very inventive works, take possession of the child as a figure of the witness: a figure that goes beyond autobiography, which is transported to poetic land at Appelfeld, or is dressed in irony with Kertész; a figure of a child who looks at a world delivered to the inhuman as a foreigner.

Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat will reflect on what Saul Friedländer called "the reflections of Nazism", the Shoah through the detective novel (Joseph Bialot), the comic strip (Art Spiegelman), poetry (Jerzy Fickowski) but also historian’s memoirs or testimonies of all kinds that have multiplied. What have they changed in our sensibility, but also in our writing of history?

Arthur Nauzyciel, Marin Karmitz and Valérie Zenatti will discuss the impact of the works of Imre Kertész and Aharon Appelfeld on their own creations: writing, translation, theatrical and cinematographic productions as well as their relationship to his works.

This meeting is part of a cycle of four meetings on the theme "From one generation to another: the writing of great witnesses".

In the presence of Catherine Coquio, professor of comparative literature, Paris 7 University – Denis Diderot, Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat, writer and translator, Marin Karmitz, producer and director, Arthur Nauzyciel, director, director of the Théâtre national de Bretagne, and Valérie Zenatti, writer, translator and screenwriter.

Hosted by Stéphane Bou, journalist and film critic.

Cycle of 4 meetings. Rates: €5/€3 per meeting,
3 sessions purchased = €3 per session (when you book 3 meetings of this minimum cycle, you can choose them as "reduced rate (€3)" directly on our ticket office)

BOOK

From one generation to another: the writing of great witnesses

Cycle of four meetings