Please note this post includes an offensive racial term in the title of a book quoted. We have spelt this out in full because that was the book author's own conscious and deliberate choice in the context of his writing.

 

The second European Writers’ Festival, taking place on May 18 and 19 at the British Library, brings together renowned and emerging authors from 30 countries for an unmissable weekend filled with thought-provoking panels and the promise of fascinating discussions. The British Library, with its unparalleled holdings from continental Europe, offers a perfect setting for debating European literature and delving into the disquieting undercurrents shaping our societies today. This year, the event centres around the theme of Transformation and zooms in on the violent shifts in politics, climate, language, and human rights, to name a few. As poetry has long been regarded as a vehicle for change, our curators of European collections invite you to get (re)acquainted with some of the poets taking part in the festival and to join them on a transformative journey of becoming the new Europeans of the future. 

 

Katya Rogatchevskaia, Lead Curator of East European Collections, offers a fascinating glimpse into the poetry of one of the most distinct voices in contemporary Ukrainian poetry, Iryna Shuvalova. 

 

Irina Shuvalova and her poetry collection Pray to the Empty Wells (Pullman, Washington, 2019) Awaiting shelfmark  (Author photograph from https://www.irynashuvalova.com/en) 

 

Iryna Shuvalova, a Ukrainian poet, scholar, and translator, is not a stranger to the readers of the European Studies blog. Her book of poetry featured at this year’s festival, Pray to the Empty Wells, draws heavily on Ukrainian folklore. Shuvalova expertly blends its spirituality with eroticism for a heady cocktail of tender love and inconsolable sorrow.  

 

the love fish  

lives in the large body of the river

it swims in it like a pendulum    

back and forth and in a circle    

fastened to the heart’s axis   

‘Love fish’ from Pray to the Empty Wells (Pullman, Washington, 2019) Awaiting shelfmark  

 

As Kate Kellaway puts it in her review of the book for The Guardian, “translated poetry seldom finds a home in this column, and this book is one of the few rare cases.” In one of her interviews, Shuvalova asserted: “Let’s say that I’m building my own personal mythology out of space and voice.” No critic could have been more accurate in describing Shuvalova’s remarkable poetic world woven with words that let readers see, hear, and feel.  

  

But this serene world is now in danger and, like so many other Ukrainian artists, Shuvalova will have preferred that some of her poems had not been written, such as this one:

    

because the other side of the front line is like another galaxy    

how dare these outsiders, these primitives, these aliens   

kill and die—just as well as we do   

how dare they be so human and inhumane, all at once    

almost like us, too   

how dare they be like us   

how dare they   

‘Conflict zone’ from Pray to the Empty Wells  

 

On the first day of the festival, Iryna Shuvalova will participate in the panel Change and Conflict on the impact of war, displacement, and trauma. The special guest of the festival is, fittingly, the Ukrainian author and journalist, Andrey Kurkov. He will engage in a discussion with The Guardian’s Senior international correspondent and author of Invasion, Luke Harding.   

 

Poetry is a powerful tool for preserving and rejuvenating indigenous languages and traditions, attesting to their relevance and beauty in our increasingly anglicised world. Ela Kucharska-Beard, Curator of Baltic Collections, points to the communion with the natural world and the deep connection with the Estonian way of life that permeates Kristiina Ehin’s poetry. 

 

Kristiina Ehin and her poetry collection On the Edge of a Sword = Mõõgateral (Todmorden, 2018). ELD.DS.738555 (Author photograph from Postimees website) 

 

Kristiina Ehin is a leading, multi-award winning Estonian poet whose work has been translated into at least 20 languages, including English. She has also written short stories, plays and a collection of re-told south Estonian folk tales. Kristiina, who has a master’s degree in Estonian and comparative folklore, is a singer in the contemporary folk group Naised Köögis, continuing the ancient Estonian tradition of women poets and singers. She has also worked as a translator, journalist, dance teacher, lecturer and storyteller.  

 

Kristiina’s poetry, deeply spiritual, is firmly rooted in Finno-Ugric tradition and reflects her profound respect for nature. Her fourth collection of poems, the bestselling  Kaitseala (‘Protected Area’, 2005), was written during a year spent working as a nature reserve warden on an uninhabited island off the coast of Estonia. Her poetry deals with personal relationships (man-woman, mother-child) and the relationship with nature. The poems, light and modern, written from a female point of view, combine fragility and strength; they are both serious and playful, personal and universal.  

 

The European Writer’s Festival will feature Kristiina’s collection of poems On the Edge of a Sword, selected from her collection Kohtumised (Tartu, 2017; YF.2019.a.11834). The poems have been expertly translated into English by Ilmar Lehtpere, with whom the poet has an ongoing collaboration. Kristiina will be speaking at the panel Changing Gears, discussing the importance (or lack thereof) of writing in one genre.   

 

In times of upheaval, poetry amplifies marginalized narratives and gives voice to the voiceless. According to Marja Kingma, Curator of Dutch Language Collections, Simone Atangana Bekono pushes the boundaries of Dutch poetry by facilitating long overdue, radically candid conversations about racial and gender inequalities and other deeply ingrained societal biases. 

 

Simone Atangana Bekono and her novel Confrontation (Author photograph from: https://www.vpro.nl/programmas/mondo/video/mondo-minute/mondo-minute-simone-atangana-bekono.html) 

 

Simone Atangana Bekono is an author with Cameroonian/Dutch heritage, born in Dongen, a town 100km southeast of Amsterdam. She is part of a new generation of Dutch poets who write about discrimination on the basis of race, or gender, or sexual orientation (or all three), about identity, colonialism, and generational conflict. In doing so they take Dutch poetry in a whole new direction. Simone Atangana Bekono burst onto the literary scene in 2017 with the poetry collection Hoe de eerste vonken zichtbaar waren (2nd ed, 2018; YF.2019.a.17267), which was translated into English by David Colmer as How the First Sparks Became Visible (Birmingham, 2021). Other translations include Spanish and Rumanian.  

 

Simone won multiple awards for her Young Adult debut novel Confrontaties (Amsterdam, 2021) YF.2021.a.9720, the story of how a teenage black girl copes with her time in a young offender's institution and with her return to her community. The English edition Confrontations, translated by Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen, will be published this year. It has also been translated into German and Turkish.  

 

In March 2021, Simone participated in the online launch event for The Dutch Riveter. Like the European Writers’ Festival, it was hosted by the British Library and organised and presented by Rosie Goldsmith from the European Literature Network. In 2023 she was writer-in-residence at UCL, London.   

 

I am thrilled to see Simone at the Library once again on 18 May, as one of the guest authors at the second edition of the European Writers’ Festival! You will have a chance to meet the poet at the Transformation through Translation panel, where she will be looking into shifting attitudes towards translation in Europe.  

 

Lydia Georgiadou, Curator of Modern Greek Collections, suggests that Dean Atta dissects the intersections between race, gender, and sexuality. The poet embraces his black and queer identities and demonstrates just how liberating and empowering it is to embrace all aspects of who we really are. 

 

Dean Atta and his poetry collection There is (still) Love here (Rugby, 2022). Awaiting shelfmark. (Author photograph from: https://www.geeksout.org/2022/05/25/interview-with-author-dean-atta/) 

 

Award-winning British author and poet of Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage Dean Atta joins the closing panel of the Festival, The New Europeans of the Future to discuss how transformation impacts the ‘new’ European authors’ craft, identity and perception of home, nationhood and Europe.   

 

Atta’s featured book, There is (still) love here  is described on the author’s website as “a compelling new collection of poetry [exploring] relationships, love and loss, encompassing LGBTQ+ and Black history, Greek Cypriot heritage, pride and identity, dislocation and belonging” and “an antidote for challenging times”.  

 

The lyrics of ‘On days when’ are characteristic: 

  

On days when  

you feel like a wilting garden, 

gather yourself, roll up your lawn,  

bouquet your flowers,

embrace your weeds.  

You are a wild thing playing

at being tame.  

You are rich with life beneath 

the surface.  

You don’t have to show leaf

and petal to be living.  

You are soil and insect and root.  

 

There is (still) love here comes after two novels in verse: Only on the Weekends (London, 2022; ELD.DS.692242) and The Black Flamingo (London, 2019; ELD.DS.455619), which won Atta the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award, CILIP Carnegie Shadowers Choice Award, West Sussex School Librarians’ Amazing Book Awards and What Kids are Reading Quiz Writers’ Choice Award. The Black Flamingo featured in the British Library’s recent exhibition Malorie Blackman: The Power of Stories. 

 

The title poem of Atta’s debut collection, I Am Nobody’s Nigger (London, 2013; YK.2013.a.23925), consciously and deliberately uses the racial slur as a response to its use by the murderers of Stephen Lawrence. The poem achieved much social media coverage and was shortlisted for the 2014 Polari First Book Prize.  

 

Dean Atta is a Malika’s Poetry Kitchen member, National Poetry Day ambassador and LGBT+ History Month patron. He was listed as one of the most influential LGBTQIA+ people in the UK by the Independent on Sunday and his books have been praised by the likes of Bernardine Evaristo, Benjamin Zephaniah and Malorie Blackman.  

 

Europe is in flux, and poetry gently peels away the layers of the ongoing transformation. The authors participating in this year’s festival encourage us to reimagine the society we hope to emerge into once the whirlwind of change has subsided.  

 

In our next post, we will zero in on the recurring themes of the festival. Stay tuned! 

 

Hanna Dettlaff-Kuznicka, Interim Curator of Slavonic and East European Collections