27-28 September, Hay Festival Europa28 will culminate with a pair of one-off events in Paris, France, in partnership with the world-famous independent bookshop Shakespeare & Company and the cultural space Cité Internationale des Arts.
Over two days in the French capital, award-winning writers Kapka Kassabova and Janne Teller will mark the final chapter of the Hay Festival Europa28 project, which aims to provide a space beyond Europe's traditional centres of power in which ideas for Europe’s future can be shared and discussed, amplifying the voices of women.
On Monday 27 September at 7.30pm, Kassabova and Teller will join Shakespeare & Company curator Adam Biles to discuss, “What is Europe now? Identity, culture and our post-Covid times”. Then, on Tuesday 28 September at 4pm, the pair join journalist Lauren Bastide at Cité Internationale des Arts to discuss “Europa(s): Identity, feminism, and diversity.”
Described by critics as a modern Scheherazade, Bulgarian-British writer Kapka Kassabova is the author of the polyphonic Lisière and L’Écho du lac (Marchialy) – deep psycho-geographic dives into a transboundary Balkan ecology where the human condition is explored in all its facets. Janne Teller is a critically acclaimed and best-selling Danish novelist and essayist of Austrian-German background. She has received numerous literary grants and awards, including the prestigious American Michael L. Printz Honor Award for literary excellency and the Danish Drassow’s Literary Peace Prize.
Find out more about how to join the events free live or online at hayfestival.org/europa28.
Hay Festival Europa28 began in 2019, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union through Wom@rts, which aims to promote an equal, shared presence of women as active agents in the artistic arena.
Twenty-eight acclaimed women writers, journalists, artists, scientists and entrepreneurs were selected to take part in the project – one from each EU country, plus the UK – and invited to share their visions for the future in live events and a special anthology.
Published in the UK with Comma Press, Spain with Galaxia Gutenburg, and Croatia with Fraktura, the anthology’s essays and stories were shared and discussed by participants in 19 Festivals over the past three years, including a one-off hybrid Hay Festival event in Rijeka, Croatia last October as part of its European Capital of Culture 2020 celebrations.
Cristina Fuentes, Hay Festival international director, said: “Over the past three years, Hay Festival Europa28 has offered a long-form platform for discussing and engaging with ideas for tomorrow. While the project sought to pull insights from the most notable experts and practitioners in their fields, it also highlighted the persistently diminished and under-represented contribution of women in these areas. We are delighted to bring this project to France for its triumphant culmination. Join us live and online.”
Find out more about the project and how to attend the upcoming events here.