NORA NADJARIAN: Divided We Write

Monday, November 23, 2009

Divided We Write

30 November 2009, Lecture, Goethe-Zentrum Nicosia, 20.00 h

"Divided we write. German and Cypriot authors on their divided homelands"

Lecturer: Dr Holger Briel, Associate Professor, University of Nicosia

In 2008, Uwe Tellkamp took the German bestseller lists by storm with his 1000-page text "Der Turm" in which he describes the turmoil of intellectuals living in the former German Democratic Republic. Nora Nadjarian's texts, especially her very well received "Ledra Street" (2006) are poetically charting the results of living in another divided country, Cyprus.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Biography

Nora Nadjarian is an award-winning Cypriot poet and writer. She has represented Cyprus at literary events and festivals in Europe and elsewhere, including Frankfurt Book Fair and Dresdner Bardinale and within the framework of EU2016, in the poetry project ‘In European Poetry I want to live’ (Amsterdam).

Her work has been cited or published in the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Telegraph and has also won prizes and commendations in international competitions, including the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, the Féile Filíochta International Poetry Competition, the Binnacle International Ultra-Short Competition and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. Her work deals with the themes of women, refugees, identity, exile, love and loss, as well as the political situation in Cyprus.

In Cyprus she is best known for her book of short stories “Ledra Street” (2006) but has had poetry and short fiction published internationally. Her work was included in A River of Stories, an anthology of tales and poems from across the Commonwealth, illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski, Best European Fiction 2011 (Dalkey Archive Press), Being Human (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) and Capitals (Bloomsbury, 2017).Her latest publication is the collection of short stories Selfie (Roman Books, 2017) and her short plays “Mermaid” and “Catalina” were recently performed at the Old Red Lion theatre in London.

Her special interest lies in the teaching of creative writing. In recent years she has facilitated several creative writing workshops– in English, Greek and German – at schools, universities and prisons in Cyprus and Germany.