Update: Unfortunately, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is no longer able to join us at the Festival.

Marsha Lederman will separately interview two of the most talked-about international writers on our roster. Jenny Erpenbeck is a powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Her latest work, Kairos, tells of a star-crossed love affair in 1980s East Berlin. Irish author Elaine Feeney joins us to discuss her latest work, How to Build a Boat, heralded as “one of those rare books that leaves you feeling less lonely.” This is an opportunity to be immersed in conversation with women of world repute. Moderated by Marsha Lederman.

Event Participants:

Jenny Erpenbeck

JENNY ERPENBECK was born in East Berlin in 1967. New Directions publishes her books The Old Child & Other Stories, The End of Days, The Book of Words, and Visitation, which NPR called “a story of the century as seen by the objects we’ve known and lost along the way.” The End of Days won the prestigious Hans Fallada Prize and the International Foreign Fiction Prize. Erpenbeck lives in Berlin.

Travel for Jenny Erpenbeck supported by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Vancouver.

Elaine Feeney

ELAINE FEENEY is an award-winning writer from Galway and teaches at The National University of Ireland, Galway. She has published three collections of poetry, including The Radio was Gospel and Rise and the award-winning drama, WRoNGHEADED with The Liz Roche Company. As You Were, her debut novel, was published in 2020 by Vintage in the UK and in 2021 by Biblioasis in North America. It was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and was included in The Guardian’s top debut novels for 2020. It appeared widely in best books of 2020 including in The Telegraph, The Irish Independent, The Evening Standard, The Guardian, The Observer and The Irish Times.

Marsha Lederman

MARSHA LEDERMAN is an award-winning journalist and author. She is columnist for The Globe and Mail, where she was previously Western Arts Correspondent for 15 years. Her bestselling memoir Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2022.