As the Festive Season is about to begin, we invite you to a literary soiree centred upon one of the most amazing Romanian literary breakthroughs in recent memory. Politician turned author Varujan Vosganian talks about his overwhelming novel “The Book of Whispers”, recently published by Yale University Press, joined by Rosie Goldsmith, the eloquent supremo of European literary promotion in the UK. Translated by indefatigable Alistair Ian Blyth, the novel, which has become a great international success, follows the troubled history of an Armenian family from their ancestral home, through tragedy and exile, to redemption in their new home in Romania.
“We suffer from collective amnesia, we don't learn from our past horrors. Fiction, perhaps, exists to guide us there where we have allowed our memory to fail. Through family recollections, public accounts and factual reports, Varujan Vosganian has built an extraordinary novel that is also a memory machine. After reading “The Book of Whispers” we can no longer deny this shameful chapter of our common past.”— writer Alberto Manguel, author of “The Library at Night”
Varujan Vosganian, senator, former minister and author, is a graduate of the Faculty of Commerce of the Academy of Economic Studies and of the Faculty of Mathematics of Bucharest University. He has a Ph.D. in Economics, and is founder of the Romanian Society for Economics and an International Adviser to the European Union’s Centre for Political Studies in Brussels. He is President of the Union of Armenians in Romania and Vice President of the Romanian Writers’ Union. Besides various theoretical works, mainly on economic subjects, he has published three volumes of poetry - „Şamanul albastru” (“The Blue Shaman”) (1994), „Ochiul alb al reginei” (“The White Eye of the Queen”) (2001), „Iisus cu o mie de braţe” (“Jesus with a Thousand Arms”) (2004) and „Cartea poemelor mele nescrise” (“The Book of my Unwritten Poems”) (2015); two novels - „Cartea şoaptelor” (“The Book of Whispers”) (2009, 2012) and „Copiii războiului” (“The Children of War”) (2016), as well as two volumes of short stories - „Statuia Comandorului” (“The Statue of Commander”) (1994), awarded the Prize of the Bucharest Writers’ Association, and „Jocul celor o sută de frunze şi alte povestiri” (”The Game of Hundred Leaves and Other Stories”) (2013). His novel, “The Book of Whispers”, widely translated, was greeted as a revelation by the Romanian critics and brought him international acclaim and a Nobel Prize nomination.
Rosie Goldsmith is an award-winning journalist specializing in arts and current affairs, in the UK and abroad. In 20 years on the BBC staff she travelled the world, covering events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid in South Africa, presenting flagship BBC programmes Front Row and Crossing Continents. Rosie speaks several languages and has lived in Germany, Africa and the USA. Today she combines broadcasting and arts journalism with presenting and curating cultural events and festivals in Britain and overseas. She is founder of the European Literature Network and helped launch European Literature Night at the British Library in 2009 (now an annual event); for the European Commission she created The Language of Italian Fashion & Food; she originated the Dutch-UK festival High Impact, and, for Southbank Centre, Syria Speaks and Greece Is the Word. With Sounds Right Partnership, Rosie is the UK Partner for ELit European Literature House, for whom she stages events, writes blogs and trains public speakers in the arts. She chairs events regularly at the Hay Festival, British Library, National Theatre, Southbank Centre, London Book Fair and many more. She works closely with the Arts Council, British Council, Free Word Centre, the Victoria and Albert Museum, European Commission and Commonwealth Foundation, and several leading international cultural organisations.
When: Tuesday 5 December, 7 pm
Where: Romanian Cultural Institute, 1 Belgrave Square, London SW1X8PH
Admission is free, but places are limited. Please confirm your attendance on Eventbrite.
