About this Event
Join author Anne Weber and translator Tess Lewis for a conversation about the novel Epic Annette: A Heroine's Tale. Susie Nicklin, publisher of The Indigo Press, will moderate.
What does it mean to be a hero in the 20th century? Anne Weber's novel, winner of the 2020 German Book Prize, recounts the extraordinary true story of Annette Beaumanoir, whose involvement with the French Resistance and the Algerian FLN cemented her name in history. Beaumanoir’s gripping story, including her exile from France and separation from her children, embodies the tragic conflict between political activism and familial obligation. This novel about courage, resilience, and the struggle for freedom is also a bold and nuanced look at the ethics of heroism.
Guided by a passion for justice and a fervent belief in self-determination, Beaumanoir joined the French Resistance while studying medicine in Rennes, and then moved to Paris at the age of nineteen. After the war, she supported the Algerian FLN in France, resulting in her imprisonment in 1959 while pregnant with a third child. After making a dramatic escape, she then served in the Ministry of Health under Algeria’s first president Ben Bella until his overthrow in 1965. Exiled from her homeland, having been found guilty in absentia and sentenced to ten years in Pr*son, she moved to Switzerland and worked in a clinic there until an amnesty allowed her to return to France.
These are the bones of Annette’s story. Anne Weber sings them to life, showing us the drama behind the facts in lyrical free verse beautifully translated into English by Tess Lewis. She also explores the ethical and philosophical aspects of Annette’s life choices, as well as the emotional pain and grief trailed in their wake. Annette resembles the great heroes Odysseus and Aeneas; her character is her destiny, peripatetic, always exploring, ultimately not tragic but not without costly personal sacrifice.
Anne Weber is a German-French author, translator into both French and German and self-translator. She studied in Paris and has worked for several publishers. Anne started writing and publishing in French, but immediately translated her first book Ida invente la poudre into German as Ida erfindet das Schießpulver. Since then, she has written each of her books in French and German. In 2005 she received the 3Sat award at the Festival of German Language Literature. For her translation of Pierre Michon's work she received the Europäischer Übersetzerpreis Offenburg. She was awarded the 2020 German Book Prize for Annette, ein Heldinnenepos, which has sold more than 200,000 copies.
Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German. Her translations include works by Peter Handke, Walter Benjamin, Lutz Seiler, Jonas Lüscher and Philippe Jaccottet. Her awards include the 2017 PEN Translation Award for her translation of Maja Haderlap’s novel Angel of Oblivion and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her essays and reviews have appeared in a number of publications including Granta, Bookforum, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. She is an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review and co-curator of the Festival Neue Literature. She is a Guggenheim and Berlin Prize Fellow.
Susie Nicklin began her career at The Bodley Head publishers and co-founded foreign rights specialist The Marsh Agency in 1993. She was Director of English PEN from 2002 – 2005, and inaugurated its translation program (now PEN Translates). She was Director of Literature at the British Council from 2005 – 2013, creating international literary partnerships and events. She founded The Indigo Press in 2018.
This event is co-presented by Deutsches Haus at NYU, Villa Albertine, and The Indigo Press.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Goethe-Institut New York, 30 Irving Place, New York, United States
USD 0.00
