Melinda Nadj Abonji is a Swiss author, musician and artist with a Hungarian-Yugoslav background. During this evening, she and her Slovenian translator, Slavo Šerc, will discuss the challenges one faces when transposing a novel into another language. The focus will be on her 2010 autobiographic novel ‹Tauben fliegen auf› (Falcons without Falconers) which was awarded the German and Swiss Book Prize. The story is about a family of Hungarian origin from the Serbian province of Vojvodina that emigrates to Switzerland. The dominant subject of the novel is the loss of one's homeland, which the narrator experiences twice: Firstly, as an immigrant who tries to settle in Switzerland and, secondly, as a Swiss citizen who witnesses the disintegration of Yugoslavia from afar and is confronted with the war refugees of the 1990s. This project is undertaken in cooperation with Translation House Looren in Wernetshausen and supported by the city of Uster.
CHF 25.-/15.-/10.-