Writing Other Lives with Petina Gappah and Christopher Hope :
Thursday 25 to Sunday 28 March 2010
Société de Lecture, 11, Grand'Rue, 1204 Geneva
Course fees: £500 / 830 CHF
Writing Other Lives: This course is about finding inspiration in the other, it is about writing across languages, cultures, countries and borders, writing while living other lives.
Course director, Petina Gappah, is a multilingual Zimbabwean lawyer who has lived in Switzerland, England and Austria. Her debut collection, An Elegy for Easterly, won the 2009 Guardian First Book Prize. Teaching alongside her is the highly acclaimed and experienced writer Christopher Hope, whose prodigious output includes the award-winning Kruger’s Alp and his Booker Prize-shortlisted novel, Serenity House. As a South African who has lived in England and is currently living in France, he knows all about writing with a hyphen.
During the course, participants will address some of the following questions: How do we write in languages that we choose, or that choose us, but that are not the languages of our birth? Is writing across language a form of translation? How can we convey our world view in a language that is not originally ours? How do we convey another culture in an adopted language? How do we write in our adopted languages and still remain true to our own cultures? Is there such a thing as authenticity, and what is it? How do we write the experiences of those whose cultures and languages are not ours?
There will also be close readings of passages from renowned writers who have written across languages and cultures.
If they wish to do so, participants are encouraged to bring manuscripts for critiquing. Petina and Christopher will also offer practical help on agents and publishers.
The course will take place at the Société de Lecture, a beautiful building in the heart of the old city of Geneva. The Société de Lecture is home to over 400,000 works of literature and over the years has been frequented by well known figures from the worlds of literature, politics, art and science. Long established as an international city, Geneva and its environs have inspired writers as varied as Voltaire, Mary Shelley, Graham Greene, Lord Byron, T. S. Eliot and A. S. Byatt.
Maximum number of course places available: 15
The course includes:
• 4 days of intensive tuition
• Complimentary Moleskine® Notebook
• Daily artisan lunch
• Regular coffee breaks
• Handy course pack including local hotel recommendations
• Special discount off Faber books purchased at www.faber.co.uk
About the Tutors
Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean writer with law degrees from Cambridge, Graz University and the University of Zimbabwe. Her short fiction and essays have been published in eight countries. She lives with her son Kush in Geneva, where she works as counsel in an international organisation that provides legal aid on international trade law to developing countries. She is currently completing The Book of Memory, her first novel.
Christopher Hope was born in Johannesburg in 1944. He is the author of nine novels, including Kruger’s Alp, which won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction, Serenity House, which was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize, and My Mother’s Lovers, published by Atlantic Books in 2006 to great acclaim. He is also a poet and playwright and author of the celebrated memoir White Boy Running (1988). The Garden of Bad Dreams is his latest collection of short stories.
About Faber
Faber and Faber is the last of the great independent publishing houses in London. We were established in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber and our first editor was T. S. Eliot. Among our list of authors we are proud to publish five Booker Prize winners and eleven Nobel Laureates. We are particularly well-known for our unrivalled list of modern poets and playwrights, as well as for publishing writers of prize-winning fiction and general non-fiction.
To make a booking:
Contact Patrick on either patrickk@faber.co.uk or +44 (0) 207 927 3822
Alternatively, write to Patrick Keogh, Faber and Faber, 74-77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA
Places are strictly limited, so book soon to avoid disappointment
