Program
5 Oct 2017 19:00 - 20:30
Martin Fahrner at Family Tales of War

How can literature reconcile the personal with the national, even international, experience? As authors around Europe increasingly write about history through a familial lens, Dulce Maria Cardoso of Portugal, Martin Fahrner of the Czech Republic, Polish-Ukrainian author Zanna Sloniowska, and Péter Gárdos of Hungary discuss how they use family stories to tell wider stories of war and its impact across Europe.
Martin
Fahrner: The Invincible
Seven
Original title:
Steiner aneb Co jsme dělali
Translated from the
Czech language by Andrew Oakland
194
pp, paperback, 14 x 20 cm
ISBN:
978-80-906428-1-2
In telling the stories of several
generations of one family, the author sketches the development of Czech society
in the recent past. His version of history is replete with humour and hyperbole,
as well as emotional depth.
The protagonists live in difficult
times. The book observes in some detail more than fifty years of history,
opening in the pre-war period, giving a view of the plight of the German
minority that remained in Czechoslovakia after the war, proceeding to the
Russian occupation of the late Sixties and the subsequent persecution, before
taking in 1989’s Velvet Revolution and beyond.
The Invincible Seven
received an enthusiastic response from critics and readers alike; it has been
through two editions in the Czech Republic and has also been published in
Slovenia (Mladinska Knjiga, 2005) and Germany (Piper, 2006)
About Martin
Fahrner
Born
in 1964, Martin Fahrner graduated from the Faculty of Education in Ústí nad
Labem and the Faculty of Theatre in Prague (DAMU). He has worked as a dramaturg,
boilerman, potter, tour guide in the High Tatras and HGV driver on
trans-European routes. He has co-authored several stage plays. He seeks out
stage plays for production in Czech theatres and translates them from the
English.
Bibliography
Pohádky
pro veliké děti – Tales for Grown-up Children (1993)
Steiner
aneb Co jsme dělali – The Invincible Seven (2001, 2002)
Pošetilost
doktora vinnetouologie – The Folly of the Doctor of Winnetouology (2004)
Bláznův
kabát – The Madman’s Coat (2015)
The evening will be chaired by Anita Sethi.
Anita Sethi is an award-winning journalist, writer and
critic who has written for publications including The Guardian and Observer,
Sunday Times, Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement, Granta and New Statesman,
appears regularly on BBC radio, and chairs events at venues in the UK and
around the world.
Tickets:
Full Price: £10.00
Member: £7.00
Under 18: £7.00
Other concessions available
online booking
Part of the European Writers’ Tour 2017 in partnership with EUNIC London,
the Portuguese Embassy, the Czech Centre London, the Polish Cultural Institute
in London, Slovenian Embassy and the Hungarian Cultural Centre.
The European Writers’ Tour 2017 is a EUNIC London project coordinated by the
Instituto Camões (Portugal) in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature
and the British Library. It is supported by The European Commission
Representation in the UK and EUNIC Global, with additional support from the
Czech Centre, Flanders House and the Institut Français.
Supported by
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Venue:
Knowledge Centre, The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB
Date
5 Oct 2017 19:00 - 20:30
Organizer:
Czech Center is a coorganizer of the event