The Great European Storytellers
Discover upcoming programmes on Europe’s future with prominent writers and artists
During Forum, we explored “Artists Against the Tyrants” with Nino Haratischwili and Anne Applebaum and many more. This season, we continue that ongoing inquiry with some of the most compelling writers and artists of our time.
We seek out independent thinkers who create an antidote to authoritarianism: voices that challenge the belief that nothing can ever change, that strongmen will inevitably prevail. Through their work, they remind us that resistance, imagination, and courage remain powerful forces against resignation.
In the coming weeks, we welcome Georgi Gospodinov, Mircea Cărtărescu, Ece Temelkuran, and Oksana Zabuzhko. Each of them, through their own distinct forms of storytelling, confronts the urgencies of our time. How does the past shape the present? How can fiction bring suppressed identities to life?
Anne Applebaum at De Balie during Forum on European Culture
Featuring an immersive installation by Studio Julian Hetzel
A conversation with Ece Temelkuran about her personal experience of exile, and the political realities shaping our present moment. With an immersive art installation, by Studio Julian Hetzel, exploring the feeling of being “unhomed.”
How is nostalgia used as a political weapon? The acclaimed Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov (Time Shelter, The Death and the Gardener) explores the relationship between collective memory and identity in contemporary Europe.
Much of Ukrainian history has been misunderstood or overlooked. In conversation with Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko about her historical novel The Museum of Abandoned Secrets. How are traumatic events in Ukraine’s past remembered – or deliberately silenced? And how do unresolved histories continue to shape lives and identities decades later?
Europe – and the rest of the world – is currently undergoing profound change. The (geo)political landscape is shifting, raising questions about what Europe is. During European Literature Night, we invite seven authors from across the continent to reflect on what it means to transform.
A detective story told through letters about painters in Renaissance Florence, the Inca colonisation of Europe, or a meta-novel about the assassination of Nazi figure Heydrich: in his work, French author Laurent Binet explores the relationship between fiction and history, between reality and imagination.
De Balie in je mail, werkt geestverruimend
