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What is the role of imagination if not to process difficult memories and traumas by telling stories? Intertwining the past and the present with self-referential fiction, Nelega examines, completes and retells the unreliable narratives of her unreliable characters, set in Transylvania, before and after communism. After all, an irrational number raised to an irrational power, results in a real number - in the same way, an irrational century, raised into fiction, could illuminate unconfortable realities. Tackling with nationalism, with the collective an individual prejudices that give birth to autocracy, the narrator engages in a personal search for the "truth" in the history of Romanian-Hungarian relationships, in the larger context of Central and Eastern Europe, while, on another plan, in the present, as a woman, she is facing bigotry and humiliation. The half-truths and the fights never fought have a long-lasting impact upon our present lives. Simulation, deceit and duplicity ultimately trigger distressing questions in the following generations who have inherited the effects of their parents and grandparents' lives, during the bloodiest and most absurd century, i.e. the XXth.
The presentation will be followed by a short reading of an excerpt from the work, opening the floor for discussions and comments.
Alina Nelega is a Romanian playwright and author. Her work has been translated, published and performed in Romania and internationally. She has tackled various forms of story telling, both in theatre and literature, resonating with different audiences, addressing minority rights, difference and inclusion, individual freedom and its limitations against social pressure. As a professor of the University of Arts in Targu-Mureș, she founded the first plawrighting MA in Romania and ran local and international writing workshops and programs, in Europe and the USA, mentoring emerging playwrights and authors. She has won numerous distinctions and awards (Best Play of the Year, the Prose Award of the prestigious cultural review Observator Cultural, the „European Author” accolade at Heidelberg Stueckemarkt), and since 2008 she has been Honorary Fellow in Writing of the Iowa University.
Image: Alina Nelega
RSVP Agnes Bendik at [email protected]
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Event venue
Nador u. 15., Budapest, Hungary, 1051
Tickets
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