‘Farewell To Europe’
Could any film, or any writer, be better suited to help us understand The State We Are In? ‘Farewell To Europe’ is the 2016 film about the exile of the Jewish Austrian writer Stefan Zweig. The film describes Zweig’s loss of his European homeland after escaping to South America from the Nazis in 1936, his struggle for identity and for an understanding of the momentous changes brought about by war in Europe.
Darkness must fall Zweig wrote, before we are aware of the majesty of the stars above our heads.
This is my approach, our approach, at European Literature Network during this period of ‘darkness’ in the UK: we don’t support Brexit but we will still strive to reach the stars above our head, the stars of European Literature and culture.
When we received our first Arts Council Grant for ELNet in 2015 we named our events series Euro Stars – not only hoping to get additional funding from Eurostar (didn’t work) but because of Stefan Zweig. This month we are pleased to announce that we have just been awarded our third consecutive ACE grant for ELNet, and that our next Euro Stars collaboration will be on Friday April 28th withWaterstones Piccadilly, Little Atoms and Speaking Volumes. We are launching this new three-day-festival ‘Writers Of The World Unite’ with an evening of readings and debate from ten world class writers of world literature, from Elif Shafak to Boris Akunin.
Also in April, we return to our regular online Riveting Reviews – we are still open to reviews up to April 10th; publication is on April 12th (because of Easter). The months of May and June will also feature online reviews but with a Slovak slant in May, to reflect our next Slovak-Euro Stars on 17th May. On June 19th we are holding our next European Literature Network Meeting at the Free Word Centre in London – a date for your diary. In July and August (a bumper summer edition!) we are once again hoping to produce a special print edition of The Riveterdedicated to Russian literature and to be launched at our British Library event on August 3rd, Riveting Reads: Russian Literature Today, which will be accompanied by a Russian translation workshop in the afternoon. It’s the centenary of the Russian Revolution so we are grabbing every opportunity to promote some great Russian writers.
If you didn’t manage to pick up a bison-bedecked copy of our first Riveter magazine, created to support the Polish Market Focus at London Book Fair in March, then you can now access the whole magazine as a PDF here on our website. We also have print copies available on special request. The magazine – and all our work – is free for you to use and enjoy. Later in the year we hope to create another print Riveter on contemporary Nordic literature. However, a minor caveat: these will only be possible with more funding.
Don’t forget to have a listen to the wonderful Monocle Radio programme on the European Literature Network and the Polish Writers at London Book Fair. Also do put 10thMay in your diaries for the revamped European Literature Night, the European Writers Tour, kicking off at the British Library. Book now for Translate In The City. And remember, we are still part of Europe, and always will be. In fact, you can still apply for Creative Europe funding.
Reach for the stars! Rosie x