A Conversation with Oliver Rohe
WHEN
WHERE
Villa Europa
Kohlweg 7, 66123 Saarbrücken
LANGUAGE
French
PROGRAMME
Forced to leave West Beirut while civil war is tearing the country apart, a teenager moves with his mother and sister into a cramped bungalow at a seaside resort. In the suspended time of war, everything becomes unreal. The bungalow blocks, the beach, the swimming pools, the concrete … all of it an obsessive setting for a bitter paradise, deserted in winter and bursting with life in summer. In this ungraspable reality, friendship, escape, and the first stirrings of desire remain possible. Against a backdrop of violence – latent at first, then omnipresent – young bodies test their limits and take shape. Encompassing war and everyday life, adolescent lucidity and naïveté, Chant balnéaire (Seaside song; Allia, 2023) is a collage of sensations that immerses us in the awakening of a body and a language, fashioned both by exile and the tragedy of fratricidal conflict.
Oliver Rohe was born in Beirut in 1972 to a German father and a Lebanese mother and has lived in France since 1990. A founding member of the Inculte collective and publishing house, he is the author of several works of fiction and non-fiction, including Défaut d’origine (2003; published in English in 2013 as Origin Unknown), Terrain vague (2005;published in English in 2010 as Vacant Lot), Un peuple en petit (A people in miniature, 2009), and À fendre le cœur plus dur (To break the hardest heart, 2015).
***
“La littérature face au monde” is a series of literary events organised by the Institute of French Studies in Saarbrücken and dedicated to contemporary developments in Francophone literature. The series brings together audiences from across Saarland – students, teachers of literature, and curious readers – with writers who are regularly invited to the Villa Europa.
Moderator: Anne-Sophie Donnarieix
Admission: free
In cooperation with: Käte Hamburger Centre CURE, Frankreichzentrum | Universität des Saarlandes, Cellule francophone en Allemagne, and Saarland State Chancellery