Writers in residence 2018
A few words about the writers in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation in 2018…
STARTING IN FEBRUARY
Nicolas COUCHEPIN, Switzerland
(in residence from February 7 to March 7)
Nicolas Couchepin was born in Lausanne in 1960. He worked in education before devoting himself to writing. He is the author of three novels: Grefferic (1996) and Le sel (2000) published by Zoé, and Les Mensch (Seuil, 2013).
Donatien GARNIER, France
(in residence from February 7 to 21)
Donatien Garnier was born in 1969. His forays into contemporary poetry, based on real life observations, have been developed through transdisciplinary research bringing together artists, designers and scientists around book projects, installations and shows. In the Recueil d’Ecueils, first published in 2006, he developed an analysis of the concept of the book and “convergent objects”, which is best illustrated in L’Arbre Intégral.
http://www.donatiengarnier.com/
Constance CHLORE, Belgium
(in residence from February 7 to March 28)
Born in Brussels in 1967, Constance Chlore currently lives in Paris. She has published two volumes of poetry: Atomium (Atelier de l’agneau, winner of the Yvan Goll International French Poetry Award in 2014) and L’alphabet plutôt que rien (Eoliennes, 2017). She has also published two novels: Nicolas jambes tordues (La Fosse aux ours, 1998) and A tâtons sans bâton (Punctum, 2005). Alpha Bêta Magma is currently under consideration by a number of publishers.
Matías BATTISTON, Argentina
(in residence from February 7 to March 7)
Born in 1986, Matías Battistón is a literary translator from Argentina. During the last five years he has translated over thirty books into Spanish by authors such as Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, John Cage, and Édouard Levé. He also acts as literary adviser for local publishing houses, selecting, proposing and editing books. He teaches literary translation as well, at the University of Belgrano. He was translator in residence at Trinity College of Dublin in 2016, and was given a grant by Übersetzerhaus Looren in 2017.
Alban LEFRANC, France
(in residence from February 20 to April 11)
Born in 1975, Alban Lefranc is a novelist, a playwright and also translate from German. He reinvented the lives of Nico (Vous n’étiez pas là, Verticales, 2009), Fassbinder (Fassbinder, la mort en fanfare, Rivages, 2012), Mohamed Ali (Le ring invisible, Verticales, 2013), Bernward Vesper and Andreas Baader (Si les bouches se ferment, Verticales, 2014), Maurice Pialat (L’amour la gueule ouverte, hypothèses sur Maurice Pialat, Helium/Actes Sud, 2015). His books were translated to German (Angriffe, Blumenbar, 2008) and to Italian (Il ring invisibile, 66thand2nd, 2013). He also writes for the radio and for the theater (Steve Jobs, directed by Robert Cantarella) and his play Table rase will be published in January 2018 by Quartett publishing house. Many of his novels are being adapted for the stage. He translated four novels from German into French, especially two novels by Peter Weiss. In the year 2000 he founded the magazine La mer gelée, published since 2015 by Le nouvel Attila.
Marie LE DRIAN, France
(in residence from February 27 to April 25)
Born in Brittany in 1949, Marie Le Drian is a French writer. She studied psychology, then was qualified as a librarian in1971. She was film librarian at ORTF in Paris, before being a research assistant at CNRS, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (1975-2000). She has devoted herself to writing since 2001 and published among others Le petit bout du L (Robert Laffont, 1992, Prix des écrivains bretons), Hôtel maternel (Julliard, 1996), La cabane d’Hippolyte (Julliard, 2001, Prix Bretagne, Prix Breizh du roman), Ça ne peut plus durer (Julliard, 2003, Prix du roman de la ville de Carhaix), Attention éclaircie (La Table ronde, 2007), Le corps perdu de Suzanne Thover (Apogée, 2013, Prix Jean Bernard de l’Académie de Médecine).
STARTING IN MARCH
Emmanuel ADELY, France
(in residence from March 7 to May 30)
Born in 1962, Emmanuel Adely is the author of novels that explore the essentially fictional dimension of reality through a kind of free flow writing that is often released in a single breath, sometimes until the final punctuation. His work features in several French publishers’ catalogues (Minuit, Stock, Argol, Inculte, Seuil…), appears in journals and crops up in performances and mutates. It is artistic, political and sonorous. Every word is material for creation (discourse, articles, investigative story etc.).
http://emmanueladely.free.fr/spip/
Theo HAKOLA, USA
(in residence from March 14 to June 6)
Born in 1954, Theo Hakola was raised in Spokane, Washington. After Antioch College in Ohio and the London School of Economics and a time as political organizer (U.S. Committee for a Democratic Spain, New York, 1975), he settled in Paris in 1978 where he started a band (Orchestre Rouge – two albums) followed by another one (Passion Fodder – five albums) with which he moved to Los Angeles in 1989. Returning to France in 1995, he continued to make music “solo” (seven albums with the last one – I Fry Mine in Butter! – released in 2016), staged his play La chanson du Zorro andalou (1999-2000), and published five novels with his last – Idaho Babylone – coming out with Actes Sud in 2016.
http://theohakola.com/oldIndex.htm
STARTING IN APRIL
Barbara FONTAINE, France
(in residence from April 4 to May 2)
Born in Paris in 1968, Barbara Fontaine studied French modern languages and literature as well as German literature. Following careers in teaching and publishing, she became a translator and has devoted all her time to translating German literature since 1999. She has a particular interest in contemporary novels, but also translates texts from the fields of human science as well as youth literature. Since 2009, she has been passing on her experience and her expertise by running regular translation workshops.
Julia SØRENSEN, Switzerland
(in residence from April 12 to 29)
Born in 1979, Julia Sørensen lives and works at the foot of the Jura mountains. She has a degree from the École supérieure of visual arts in Geneva, and develops a writing style that is often fragmented and visual. She collects pieces of everyday life and recycles them into other possible everyday stories. Her texts sometimes leave the page and spread themselves on walls or elsewhere. She also participates in editing artists’ books as a part of the art&fiction editions committee (Lausanne).
Donatien GARNIER, France
(in residence from April 20 to May 7)
Donatien Garnier was born in 1969. His forays into contemporary poetry, based on real life observations, have been developed through transdisciplinary research bringing together artists, designers and scientists around book projects, installations and shows. In the Recueil d’Ecueils, first published in 2006, he developed an analysis of the concept of the book and “convergent objects”, which is best illustrated in L’Arbre Intégral.
http://www.donatiengarnier.com/
STARTING IN MAY
Sika FAKAMBI, France
(in residence from May 2 to 23)
Born in Benin in 1976, Sika Fakambi is a literary translator; she has lived in Ouidah, Cotonou, Paris, Dublin, Sydney, Toronto, Montreal, and now lives in Nantes. In 2014, her translation of the novel by Nii Ayikwei Parkes Notre quelque part, published by Zulma, won the Prix Baudelaire and the Prix Laure Batallion. Zulma subsequently published the anthology Snapshots and the collection Love is Power, ou quelque chose comme ça by A. Igoni Barrett. She then took on the translation of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. In 2017, she created “Corp/us”, a collection published by Isabelle Sauvage.
Denis MICHELIS, France
(in residence from May 9 to June 6)
Born in 1980 in Germany, Denis Michelis moved to France when he was six years old and is therefore bilingual. He studied literature, English and journalism before working as a TV reporter for Arte for ten years. In 2013, he decided to give everything up and to write a novel, which was published the following year. He also started working as a translator. He had two novels published to date – La chance que tu as (Stock, 2014) and Le bon fils (Notabilia, 2016) – and a third is planned for 2018, along with four translations.
Volker HAGEDORN, Germany
(in residence from May 9 to 23)
Born in 1961, Volker Hagedorn is an author, journalist and viola player based in Northern Germany. He studied viola in Hannover, then joined the staff of newspapers and became a freelance writer and musician in 1996. His writing has appeared mainly in Die Zeit. He has published several collections of his work as a columnist, and has contributed to many musical recordings. Author among others of Der Wolkenkoffer: Mysterien des Alltags (2008), Mann, Frau, Affe (2012), Bachs Welt (2016), he was awarded the Ben Witter Prize in 2015 and the Gleim-Literaturpreis in 2017.
http://www.volker-hagedorn.de/
Mireille VIGNOL, Australia-France
(in residence from May 9 to June 6)
Mireille Vignol, born in 1963, spent around twenty years in Australia and came back to France in 2002 following a career as a journalist specialised in Oceania and then literature at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She has been working as a literary translator since. She has translated works by famous authors in Australian literature as well as Oceanian, North American and South African writers.
Frédéric DUMOND, France
(in residence from May 16 to June 27)
Born in 1967, the artist and author Frédéric Dumond lives in Lozère. He has been working on “Glossolalie” since 2011, a multi-faceted project on the representation of the nature of language which is studied in various fields – poetry, digital media, installation, drawing, performance and books… At its core lies a poetic saga in all the world’s languages. He created “Unventer”, a campaign to collect data on languages around the world in 2017-2018.
Federica CHIOCCHETTI, Italy
(in residence from May 30 to August 29)
Writer, curator & lecturer specialized in photography, born in 1983. PhD candidate Photo-Textualities & Photographic Fictions, University of Westminster, London; MA Comparative Literature, University College of London. Founding director of the photo-literary platform Photocaptionist. Selected projects: exhibition Invisible Stratum (Tokyo Photo Festival; Jaipur Photo Festival); P.H. Emerson: presented by the author (V&A Museum/Nottingham Castle); exhibition and book Amore e Piombo (Archive of Modern Conflict, 2015 Kraszna Krausz Book Award).
Paweł GOŹLIŃSKI, Poland
(in residence from May 30 to June 27)
Paweł Goźliński was born in the Warsaw region in 1971. He became a journalist after studying drama, philosophy and sociology. He now runs the newsroom of the major daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. He also heads the Polish Reportage Institute alongside Mariusz Szczygieł and Wojciech Tochman. He published Jul in 2010 and Dziady in 2015.
STARTING IN JUNE
Miguel DEL CASTILLO, Brazil
(in residence from June 6 to 20)
Brazilian writer, editor and translator. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1987. Was one of the Best Young Brazilian Novelists selected by Granta magazine in 2012. Published his first book, Restinga, in 2015 by Companhia das Letras (a Penguin/Random House branch), which had its film rights bought by RT Features. After working as an editor at Cosac Naify publishing house, is now curator for the Instituto Moreira Salles’ library. Translated Spanish authors such as Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra.
Elisabeth TONNARD, Netherland
(in residence from June 13 to 25 July)
Born in 1973, Elisabeth Tonnard is a Dutch artist and poet working in artists’ books, photography and literature. Since 2003 she has published over forty books in which texts and images extracted from the cultural archive are processed and laid out to exhibit their latent messages. The works range in scale and method from a book that is completely invisible to a book that is a swimming pool. The books are held in numerous collections including the Centre Pompidou, Columbia University, Getty Museum, MoMA Library, New York Public Library and Tate Library. The work has won several awards, most recently the Kleine Hans 2013. In 2014 the Van Abbemuseum presented a retrospective of her bookworks. In 2017 De wolk, Tonnard’s experimental reworking of the poetry of P.C. Boutens, was published as part of the Dutch Slibreeks and her substantial poetry debut Voor het ideaal, lees de schaal was published by het balanseer in Belgium.
Ryszard WOJNAKOWSKI, Poland
(in residence from June 13 to July 11)
Born in 1956, Ryszard Wojnakowski is a Polish translator and editor. He studied German and Scandinavian Philology in Cracow. Between 1983 and 1993 he worked as an editor for a big publishing house. Since then a freelancer. He has translated more than one hundred books from German into Polish. In 2000 he initiated the Austrian contemporary lyric series, bilingual. He organizes workshops for students and young translators. He was awarded numerous grants and awards, among which the most important: the Karl-Dedecius-Preis 2009.
Belén MAYA, Spain
(in residence from June 20 to July 4)
The daughter of two great flamenco artists, Carmen Mora and Mario Maya, born in 1966 in New York, Belén Maya is a famous Spanish gypsy flamenco dancer. She began her dance studies in Madrid, before relocating to Seville to focus on flamenco. She has been invited to collaborate in the companies and shows with important dancers and choreographers such as Javier Baron, Alejandro Granados, Manuel Reyes, Andres Marin, Manolete, Goyo Montero. She also formed her own company. Her shows have received outstanding critical praise in important venues such as the Flamenco Festival in Jerez.
Pablo Martín SANCHEZ, Spain
(in residence from June 22 to October 1)
Pablo Martín Sánchez (Reus, Spain, 1977) is the author of a collection of short stories Fricciones (E.D.A., 2011) and two novels: El anarquista que se llamaba como yo (Acantilado, 2012, soon to appear in English) and Tuyo es el mañana (Acantilado, 2016). He has been a member of Oulipo since 2014 and currently lives in Barcelona where he works as a professor of writing and translation.
STARTING IN JULY
Sika FAKAMBI, France
(in residence from July 4 to 25)
Born in Benin in 1976, Sika Fakambi is a literary translator; she has lived in Ouidah, Cotonou, Paris, Dublin, Sydney, Toronto, Montreal, and now lives in Nantes. In 2014, her translation of the novel by Nii Ayikwei Parkes Notre quelque part, published by Zulma, won the Prix Baudelaire and the Prix Laure Batallion. Zulma subsequently published the anthology Snapshots and the collection Love is Power, ou quelque chose comme ça by A. Igoni Barrett. She then took on the translation of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. In 2017, she created “Corp/us”, a collection published by Isabelle Sauvage.
Sarah BAHR, Germany
(in residence from July 11 to August 8)
Sarah Bahr was born in Germany in 1986 and has been living in France since 2009. Trained at the School of Fine Arts in Lyon and the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Gießen, she has been following multiple project paths that take the form of performances and written texts in French. She has published work in various journals as well as a volume of poetry entitled Embâcle (Les petits matins, 2015). Her play Décompression Panama, ou comment survivre en milieu hostile will be staged in 2018 (Plateforme Locus Solus).
Giorgio FONTANA, Italy
(in residence from July 11 to August 8)
Born in 1981, Giorgio Fontana is an Italian writer. He was awarded the 2014 Campiello Prize with Morte di un uomo felice (Death of a happy man). He is working on a literary essay on his favourite writer and greatest inspiration, Franz Kafka. His goal is to restore a truer and more complex image of the Czech writer, focusing in particular on some neglected aspects of his work: the clowneries, the fight against power and the struggle for resistance (“even if no salvation should come”).
http://www.giorgiofontana.com/
Chien-Cheng HOU, Taiwan
(in residence from July 18 to August 15)
Hou Chien Cheng (1981, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan) is a writer and visual artist whose work is mainly autobiographical. In 2012 Hou began a literary trilogy – Brown, Green and White – which examines the artist´s own life and at the same time transpires social problems. Brown was published in 2014, followed by Green in 2016. Hou is currently working on his third book White and the related audio-visual works. Hou lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
STARTING IN AUGUST
As a duo
Yohanna MY NGUYEN, France
(in residence from August 1 to September 12)
Yohanna My Nguyen is a typographer and composer, born in 1985. Her creative output relies on text in its various forms, questioning the notion of appropriation. Her most recent work includes the publication of texts on the film director Alain Cavalier, a series of musical compositions based on the work of Émile Cohl for the Musée d’Orsay and a sound installation for the library of the University Paris 8. She teaches at the Arts High School of the Rhine in Strasbourg.
http://www.yohannamy.com/website/home.html
& Marie DE QUATREBARBES, France
(in residence from August 1 to September 12)
Born in 1984, Marie de Quatrebarbes is a poet, editor and designer who studied at the École nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs in Paris. She has published Les pères fouettards me hantent toujours (Lanskine, 2012), La vie moins une minute (Lanskine, 2014), Gommage de tête (Eric Pesty, 2017) et John Wayne est sous mon lit (cipM Spectres Familiers, 2018). Her works have been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, English, Dutch and Arabic. She co-founded the journal La tête et les cornes and is working on a new collection of foreign poetry with Eric Pesty.
http://mariedequatrebarbes.org/
Iosi HAVILIO, Argentina
(in residence from August 15 to September 12)
A novelist and screenwriter, born in 1974 in Buenos Aires. Iosi Havilio studied philosophy, music and film. He has published the following novels: Opendoor (Entropía, Buenos Aires, 2007), Estocolmo (Mondadori, 2010), Paraísos (Mondadori/Caballo de Troya, 2012), La Serenidad (Entropía, Buenos Aires, 2014) and Pequeña flor (PRH, 2015). His works have been translated into English, Italian, French and other languages. He has been involved in several other projects: anthologies, stage productions and film screenplays.
Laurent PEREZ, France
(in residence from August 22 to November 21)
Born in 1980, former teacher trained as a historian, Laurent Perez has made writing his main activity since several years. Alongside various personal projects, including a biographical essay on Jean Arp published in 2016, he founded the journal La Lecture in 2011 and later became a regular contributor to the books section of the journal Artpress and occasionally to Alsatian journals like Poly and Les Saisons d’Alsace. He also works as a literary and audio-visual translator.
STARTING IN SEPTEMBER
Aleksander KACZOROWSKI, Poland
(in residence from September 5 to 19)
Born in 1969, Aleksander Kaczorowski is a Polish author and translator of the Czech literature. His recent books include Hrabal. Słodka apokalipsa [Hrabal. A Sweet Apocalypse] (2016) and Havel. Zemsta bezsilnych [Havel. A Revenge of the Powerless] (2014). He also translated works by Bohumil Hrabal, Josef Škvorecký, Egon Bondy, Peter Demetz and Helga Weiss. He won Ambassador of New Europe Prize (2015) for his biography of Václav Havel and Václav Burian Prize (2016) for cultural contribution to the Central European dialogue.
Violaine BEROT, France
(in residence from September 5 to December 19)
Violaine Bérot, 50 years old, 6 novels. Her life and writing have been inextricably linked throughout her career. She uses her feminine emotions, feelings and intuition when she writes. Born in the Pyrenees, she was attracted to city life for a while before her inner wild child quickly took her back to her roots. She has left modernity and development behind in favour of farming and the simple life. She reflects on what it means to live in today’s world and writes about our misguided ways.
https://violaineberot.wordpress.com/
Alain Serge DZOTAP, Cameroon
(in residence from September 19 to November 21)
Alain Serge Dzotap was born on 18 September 1978 in Bafoussam in Cameroon. That much is certain. But he doesn’t know the exact time. He read his first stories in books in primary school. He hasn’t stopped reading them since, in various forms from all over the world. He now has a few of his own stories written in French, English and Chinese, and hopes one day to see them translated into Antelope, cobbles on the street or Elephant, three original languages.
Miriam Bird GREENBERG, USA
(in residence from September 19 to December 19)
The author of two chapbooks, All night in the new country (Sixteen Rivers) and Pact-Blood, Fevergrass (Ricochet Editions), Miriam Bird Greenberg, born in 1980, recently published In the Volcano’s Mouth, winner of the 2015 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, as well as the recipient of fellowships from the NEA, the Poetry Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, she lives in Berkeley where for many years she collaboratively developed site-specific performances for very small audiences. She’s at work on a manuscript of ethnographically-derived poetry about economic migrants and asylum seekers in Hong Kong.
http://miriambirdgreenberg.com/
Eliza ROBERTSON, Canada
(in residence from September 19 to December 19)
Eliza Robertson, born in 1987, studied creative writing at the University of Victoria and the University of East Anglia, where she received the Man Booker Scholarship and Curtis Brown Prize. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was shortlisted for the Journey Prize and CBC Short Story Prize. Her debut collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award, Danuta Gleed Short Story Prize and selected as a New York Times editor’s choice. Her first novel, Demi-Gods, comes out with Penguin Canada and Bloomsbury this fall.
http://www.elizarobertson.com/
STARTING IN OCTOBER
Sika FAKAMBI, France
(in residence from October 3 to 24)
Born in Benin in 1976, Sika Fakambi is a literary translator; she has lived in Ouidah, Cotonou, Paris, Dublin, Sydney, Toronto, Montreal, and now lives in Nantes. In 2014, her translation of the novel by Nii Ayikwei Parkes Notre quelque part, published by Zulma, won the Prix Baudelaire and the Prix Laure Batallion. Zulma subsequently published the anthology Snapshots and the collection Love is Power, ou quelque chose comme ça by A. Igoni Barrett. She then took on the translation of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. In 2017, she created “Corp/us”, a collection published by Isabelle Sauvage.
STARTING IN NOVEMBER
Bilia BAH, Guinea
(in residence from November 12 to December 19)
Born in 1980, the writer and journalist Bilia Bah discovered drama through “guerrilla theatre” before taking part in writing workshops in Conakry and Cotonou. He won a place on the Artist Residencies Visas for Creation in 2008 and completed residency programs in France and Burkina. He has directed the La Muse theatre company since 2012 as well as the Univers des mots festival, which welcomes and supports French-speaking artists all over the world. He lives in Guinea where he still writes for forum theatre.
Denis MICHELIS, France
(in residence from November 28 to December 19)
Born in 1980 in Germany, Denis Michelis moved to France when he was six years old and is therefore bilingual. He studied literature, English and journalism before working as a TV reporter for Arte for ten years. In 2013, he decided to give everything up and to write a novel, which was published the following year. He also started working as a translator. He had two novels published to date – La chance que tu as (Stock, 2014) and Le bon fils (Notabilia, 2016) – and a third is planned for 2018, along with four translations.
Photo Pablo Martín Sánchez © Barbara Balcells Matas | Photos © D.R.
