Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse and Jakuta Alikavazovic | Specters of Violence

The Center for Writers & Translators and the George & Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention are delighted to host a reading and conversation with two rising stars of Francophone fiction, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse and Jakuta Alikavazovic. Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse was born in 1979 in Butare, Rwanda, and came to France in 1994. Her 2020 novel, Tous tes enfants dispersés, winner of the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie, explores moments before and after the Rwandan genocide within several generations of the same family. An English translation of it will be published next year. Jakuta Alikavazovic is a French writer of Bosnian and Montenegrin origins. Her most recent works, the novel L'Avancée de la nuit (published last spring in English under the title Night As It Falls) and the long essay Comme un ciel en nous (just awarded the 2021 Prix Médicis), both address the Yugoslav legacy of a daughter. Alikavazovic has translated works by Ben Lerner, David Foster Wallace and Anna Burns into French. She lives in Paris and writes a regular column for the daily newspaper Libération.

This event is free and open to AUP students, faculty and staff. Please use the form below to reserve a space; for additional information contact dmedinaup.edu.