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In his guest lecture within the framework of Professor Doctor Birgit Neumann's seminar "Migration and Refugee Narratives: Self-Translation, Mis-Translation and Non-Translation", Professor Doctor Jan Rupp analyses life-writing as 'site of refuge' and 'hospitable form'.

Abstract

In the face of material and legal constraints for refugees to speak, their life stories are frequently facilitated by new networks of solidarity to protest hostile immigration regimes. These invariably complex constellations of telling – involving refugees, activists, lawyers, translators and go-between writers, among others – are haunted by scepticism over the question of who can speak as/for refugees and display elusive multidirectional linkages with earlier bodies of migrant literature. However, in the absence of rights and representation, life-writing offers an important site of refuge itself, resulting in innovative forms of fictional accommodation, emic and etic narratives, or auto- and heterobiography. Further mapping this growing network of what I call ‘hospitable form’, my talk will survey a broad spectrum of non-fictional to fictional(ized) life-writing, including of the multi-volume Refugee Tales (2016-21). I will then turn to a close reading of Behrouz Boochani’s prize-winning autobiographical account No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (2018), with a particular view to the role of media and translation. I will argue that refugee narratives cover important new ground for life-writing while registering the impact of refugee systems, as an emergent body of work yet to be fully accommodated.

About Professor Doctor Jan Rupp

Having served as an interim professor at the universities of Frankfurt, Giessen, Heidelberg and Wuppertal, Professor Doctor Jan Rupp currently is coordinator of the Research Centre for the Study of Culture at the Justus Liebig University Giessen. Learn more about his research here.

Dorothea Traupe gibt die diesjährige Keynote für die Summer School des Literaturübersetzen Studiengangs. In ihrer Keynote mit dem Titel "Übersetzer·innen als Verbündete | Macht · Asymmetrien · Teilhabe" wird sie u. a. über ethische Auftragsentscheidungen und das Übersetzen aus "kleinen Sprachen" sprechen.

Dorothea Traupe hat Politikwissenschaft, Englische und Polnische Literaturwissenschaft sowie Literarisches Übersetzen aus dem Englischen an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München studiert. Sie arbeitet als Dozentin, Moderatorin, Prozessbegleiterin mit Schwerpunkt inklusive Kommunikation, Diversität und Barrierefreiheit sowie als Übersetzerin für Englisch, Polnisch und Leichte Sprache. Im Rahmen von DÜF-Gastdozenturen hat sie sich in den letzten beiden Wintersemestern intensiv mit dem Thema „Literaturübersetzen in Einfache/Leichte Sprache“ beschäftigt. Mehr: www.dorotheatraupe.de.

Within the framework of this year's literary translation summer school, Doctor Elizabeth Chakrabarty reads from her novel "Lessons in Love and Other Crimes".

Doctor Elizabeth Chakrabarty is an interdisciplinary writer using creative and critical writing, besides performance, to explore themes of race, gender and sexuality. Her debut novel Lessons in Love and Other Crimes, inspired by experience of race hate crime, was published in 2021 by the Indigo Press, along with her essay, On Closure and Crime. In 2022 Elizabeth was longlisted for both the Desmond Elliott Prize, and also shortlisted for the LGBTQ Polari First Book Prize, for Lessons in Love and Other Crimes. She was also shortlisted for the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2022, and her story 'That Last Summer' was published in The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction 2022: Crime Stories by Comma Press. She was shortlisted for the Asian Writer Short Story Prize in 2016, and her story 'Eurovision' was published in Dividing Lines (Dahlia, 2017). Her poetry has been published by Visual Verse, and her short creative-critical work includes writing published in Gal-Dem, New Writing Dundee, Wasafiri, and the anthology Imagined Spaces (Saraband, 2020), and in translation, by Glänta and Deus Ex Machina. In 2023 she received the CrimeFest bursary for crime fiction authors of colour, and was the April writer in residence at Passa Porta, Brussels, besides being invited by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation to give a masterclass for their Gay Writes project. She lives in London.

A Conversation with Sinophone Writer Yan Geling and Translator Lawrence Walker

Heine Haus Literaturhaus, Bolkerstraße 53, 40213 Düsseldorf

On 7 June 2024, Yan Geling, one of the most acclaimed Sinophone novelists and screenwriters, along with literary translator Lawrence Walker, will discuss the aesthetics and politics of narrating and translating China and the Chinese experience abroad. Moderated by Dr. Yongli Li and Dr. Hannah Pardey, this event will feature a conversation about their creative processes, readings from a selection of Yan’s writings and Walker’s translations, and a discussion with the audience. The event will be conducted in English.

Yan Geling 嚴歌苓 is one of the most acclaimed novelists and screenwriters in the Chinese language and a well-established writer in English. Born in Shanghai, she served with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during the Cultural Revolution, starting at age twelve as a dancer in an entertainment troupe. Ms. Yan published her first novel in 1986 and has been writing constantly ever since. Many of her works have been adapted for film and television, working with famous Chinese directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Feng Xiaogang, Ang Lee, Li Shaohong and Joan Chen. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ms. Yan holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College, Chicago. She has published over 40 books and has won over 30 literary and film awards. Her works have been translated into twenty-one languages. Her literary and film work after March 2020 has been unofficially banned in China after she wrote an essay criticizing the Chinese government’s initial handling of the COVID-19 crisis. She resides in Berlin and is co-owner of New Song Media GmbH, which she and her husband Lawrence Walker founded to publish her work and produce her films.

Lawrence A. (Larry) Walker, born in California, worked as a US diplomat from 1980-1991 and again from 2004-2013, serving Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa and the United States. Between 1991 to 2004 he was managing director of the German American Chamber of Commerce in San Francisco and worked in international business development for a dot-com and a venture capital company. He translated and published Yan Geling’s White Snake and Other Stories with Aunt Lute Books and her short story “The Landlady” in Granta. His translation of her novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi 陆犯焉识 is to be published by Balestier Press. He is the managing director and co-owner with Yan Geling of New Song Media GmbH, founded to publish her work and produce her film projects. He holds a B.S. in Languages and Linguistics from Georgetown University; an M.B.A. from the University of Illinois; and a Master’s in Administration and Management from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, which he attended as a Rotary Ambassador Scholar.

Sponsored by Gesellschaft von Freunden und Förderern der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf e.V. (GFFU), Transcultural Studies and Centre for Translation Studies at HHU.

Moderation: Dr. Hannah Pardey (Centre for Translation Studies, HHU), Dr. Yongli Li (Transcultural Studies, HHU)