This week, audiences in Gothenburg, Stockholm, Trondheim, Stavanger and Oslo are invited to encounters with some of the most exciting voices in contemporary literature from the Americas. Writers Rodrigo Fresán (Argentina/Spain), Guadalupe Nettel (Mexico), Ana Valdés (Uruguay/Sweden) and Pedro Carmona-Alvarez (Chile/Norway) take part in this leg of the Diásporas/Encuentros tour, the third literary tour organised by the Shahrazad - stories for life partners in Stockholm and Stavanger.
After succesfully organising the Hakawati and Mem u Zin tours, which focused on Arabic and Kurdish literature respectively, the Diápsoras/Encuentros tour was conceived to bring stories from Latin American writers to Scandinavian audiences. In March, the tour kicked off with encounters presenting Carlos Aguilera, Karla Suarez, Josefin Adolfsson and Rene Vazquez Diaz in Gothenburg and Malmö.
The next five encounters will be thematically centred around exile and identity, and the ways encounters with new cultures influence the literary voice. Rodrigo Fresán was born in Argentina, but has lived and worked in Barcelona since 1999. He has received several awards for his books, and they have been translated into a multitude of languages. "Kensington Gardens" came out in 2007, and his latest novel "El Fondo del Cielo" was released last year. Guadalupe Nettel (appearing in Swedish events only) was born in Mexico, but spent parts of her childhood in France. Her short stories have been met with acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, and in 2007 she was listed as one of the 39 most important Latin American writers under 40 in the prestigious Generación Bogotá 39. Pedro Carmona-Alvarez was born in Chile, but came to Norway at age ten, when his family fled Chile. He is considered to be one of the most interesting writers in Norway, especially since the publishing of the novel "Rust" in 2009. Ana Valdés (appearing in Norwegian events only) came to Sweden from Uruguay as a political refugee in 1979 after having been imprisoned for four years in her home country. She is a writer and translator, serves on the board of Swedish PEN, and her short stories have been translated into several languages.
