90. Women’s Voices from Europe

Here is a rare opportunity to hear from three influential, contemporary European writers, all on one Vancouver stage. Award-winning Estonian writer and poet Carolina Pihelgas shares her first work to be translated into English; The Cut Line follows a woman who flees to the countryside to put an end to her toxic 14-year relationship, and comes face to face with the dread of climate change. The Long Version, by renowned Czech author Petra Hůlová, explores the shifting meanings of feminism over generations as a woman and her daughter clash over an incident from the past. Camille de Peretti joins us from France with Portrait of an Unknown Woman, a dazzling reimagining of the life of Gustav Klimt’s model in one of his most iconic paintings. The writers will discuss their stunning novels, other work in translation emerging from Europe, and female empowerment today. Moderated by Anna Ling Kaye.

Presented in partnership with Alliance Française Vancouver. Camille de Peretti’s appearance presented with the generous support of the Institut français du Canada.

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Event Participants:

Camille de Peretti

CAMILLE DE PERETTI was born in Paris in 1980. Passionate about painting and literature, she has been writing since 2005 and is the author of eight novels.

Petra Hůlová

PETRA HŮLOVÁ’s provocative novels, plays, and screenplays have won numerous awards, including the ALTA National Translation Award for Alex Zucker’s translation of her debut novel, All This Belongs to Me, and she is a regular commentator on current events for the Czech press. She studied language, culture, and anthropology at universities in Prague, Ulan Bator, and New York, and was a Fulbright scholar in the USA. Her eight novels and three plays have been translated into thirteen languages. She used to define her writing as “3G”: always working with topics of gender, generations, and geography. Her novels are often narrated in first person and range from intimate confessions to buoyant epic sagas. The Movement is her latest work.

Anna Ling Kaye

ANNA LING KAYE is a writer, editor, and columnist on CBC Radio. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the PEN Canada New Voices Prize and the Journey Prize, and received the 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award.

Carolina Pihelgas

CAROLINA PIHELGAS is an Estonian writer, poet, translator, and editor. Her collection of prose poems Valgus kivi sees (The Light within the Stone, 2019) received the Estonian Cultural Endowment Award for the best poetry book of the year. In 2020, she was appointed Tartu’s City Writer Laureate. The author of seven collections of poetry published her first novel Vaadates ööd (Watching the Night) in 2022. The short novel The Cut Line is her second work of prose and her first work to be translated into English.