LitHouse podcast

«The moral component of history, the most necessary component, is simply a single questions, asked over and over again: When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power?» One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El AkkadThe lack of a response from the West to Israel’s brutal war in Gaza reveals how the West values certain lives more than others, according to author and journalist Omar El Akkad. For El Akkad, born in Egypt and raised in Qatar, the West long represented the polar opposite to everything he hated about the Middle East: The corruption, the censorship, the surveillance, the exaltation of corrupt leaders.As a teenager, El Akkad moved with his family to North America, and became a part of the liberal Western world order. Despite a few reservations, he kept his faith in the West as a region committed to human rights, freedom, justice and respect for the law. Until October 8th, 2023, when Israel launched their latest war against Gaza.The essay collection One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a reckoning with what El Akkad considers to be the West’s double standards. He exposes rhetoric and euphemisms that allow murder on innocent civilians, that necessitates the new acronym WCNSF (wounded child, no surviving family), and shows how the Gaza war is part of a longer history of us versus them.Omar El Akkad is an award-winning author and journalist of many years. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is his first non-fiction book, it has garnered broad attention and is under translation into a number of languages.At the House of Literature, El Akkad was joined by author and journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam for a conversation about anger, the suffering in Gaza and Western double standards.The event was supported by NORAD. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie publishes her first novel in 12 years, it is a real event. With award winning and critically acclaimed titles such as Americanah, Half of a Yellow Sun and We Should All Be Feminists, Adichie has attracted a large readership across the world.Both in her novels and in her non-fiction, she explores what it means to be a woman and a feminist in the world today, and through her own books as well as the many aspiring writers she mentors and influences, she contributes to a greater diversity of stories and literary voices.In her new novel, Dream Count, we follow four women who, each in their own way, come up against societal expectations and limits as to what women can do and ask for. Chiamaka spends the pandemic lockdown recounting all her failed relationships, Zikora tries to track down her ex, who left her when she became pregnant, Omelogor starts a blog addressed to men, and the maid Kadiatou tries to carve out a new life for herself and her daughter in the US.Weaving together their histories, and in close portraits of the four women, Adichie explores female experiences such as society’s expecations for when you are to marry and have children, darker themes like abortion and female genital mutilation, but also female solidarity and sisterhood.Since her literary debut in 2003, Chimamanda Adichie has become a literary and feminist icon, and she has introduced African literature to readers across the world.She has been awarded the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, the Orange Prize and the US National Book Critics Circle Award, just to mention a few. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages.In Oslo, she was joined by journalist and editor Jessika Gedin for a conversation about women’s experiences, society’s expectations and the universal need to be loved.The conversation took place in the University of Oslo’s Ceremonial Hall and was supported by NORAD. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wole Talabi is a Nigerian science fiction author. He is best known for his short stories, most of them collected in the collections Incomplete Solutions and Convergence Problems. His latest novel Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon won the prestigious Nommo award for best novel. Talabi has also edited the anthologies Africanfuturism and Mothersound, both central publications in African fantasy and science fiction.  This is Talabi’s reading list:-       Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon-       Kojo Laing, Woman of the Aeroplanes-       Lauren Beukes, Zoo City-       Tade Thompson, Rosewater-       Tlotlo Tsamaase, Womb City-       T. L. Huchu, Library of the DeadHe also mentions:-       Ben Okri-       Chinua Achebe-       Wole Soyinka-       Carmen Maria Machado-       Arthur C. Clarke-       Isaac Asimov-       Larry Niven, Ringworld-       Jerry Pournelle-       Cyprian Ekwensi-       Flora Nwapa-       Pemi Aguda, Ghostroots-       Amos Tutuola, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and The Palm-Wine Drinkard The host in this episode is Daniel Røkholt. Editing and production by the House of Literature. Music by Ibou Cissokho. The House of Literature’s project to promote African literature is supported by NORAD. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Youssef Rakha is an award-winning author of both novels and poetry, as well as a journalist and a photographer. I 2009, he was selected by the Hay Festival as one of the best Arabic writers under 40. He is known for The Crocodiles-trilogy, following a group of poets before, during and after the 2011 revolution. The Dissenters is his first novel written in English.The story is told by Nour. When his mother dies, he starts cleaning out her things in the attic, and soon discovers a far more complex portrait of the woman he thought he knw. From her forced marriage to a far older man in the 50s – whom she left, via a liberated French student and a pious, religious mother to a radical activist during the 2011 revolution.His mother’s many faces mirror the changing history of Egypt, as well as the limitations and possibilities for women through that turbulent time.At the House of Literature, Rakha is joined by Teresa Pepe, Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Oslo, for a conversation about Egyptian history, revolutions, mothers and sons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What characterizes the new Arabic literature? Writers involved in the Arab Spring are now imprisoned, exiled or living with the political repression, wars and disillusionment that has marked the region ever since. How are these experiences expressed in literature and the broader culture?Teresa Pepe is professor of Arabic literature at the University of Oslo. Her research has focused on Arabic literature and culture during and after the Arab Spring. She is the author of the book Blogging from Egypt: Digital Literature, and editor of several collective volumes, including Arabic Literature in a Posthuman World.In this talk, she will examine how Arabic culture has evolved since the 2011 uprisings. She will illustrate how authors such as Ahmed Naji, Mohammed Rabie, Basma Abd el-Aziz, and Alaa Abd al-Fattah employ dystopian and horrific narratives to reflect a world that is rapidly shifting due to ecological and technological changes while political crackdowns, wars, and violence are on the rise.These are the books Pepe focuses on in her lecture, all available in English translations:Ahmed Naji, Using LifeMohammad Rabie, OtaredBasm Abdel Aziz, The QueueAlaa Abd Al-Fattah, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Arab Spring is when Egyptian Youssef Rakha first starts writing novels. Moroccan Soukaina Habiballah publishes her first poetry collection shortly after, while French Moroccan Leïla Slimani works as a journalist at the time, reporting on the protests unfolding throughout Northern Africa and the Maghreb, before turning to fiction.How have these experiences shaped their writing? All three writers explore the quest for freedom, whether on a personal or a collective level. Can we talk about a post-Arab Spring literature, or is that merely a handy label for the West?«Just like Arab Muslim lives, Arab Muslim writing is not worth the civilized world’s attention,» Rakha wrote in an essay in Guernica last year.Soukaina Habiballah is the award-winning author of four poetry collections, a short story collection, a novel and a play, Nini Ya Momo.Youssef Rakha was selected among the Hay Festival’s best Arabic writers under 40 in 2009. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels and poetry, most recently the novel The Dissenters.Leïla Slimani is one of the most prominent literary voices in Frankophone literature today. She won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016 for her novel Lullaby, and has excited critics with her trilogy of a French-Moroccan family saga.Habiballah, Rakha and Slimani was joined by journalist and critic Helene Hovden Hareide for a conversation about freedom and revolutions, about the power of literature for readers, authors and for moving the world forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2021, as the first African-born writer in almost 20 years, for having, in the jury’s reasong, «highlighted the impact of colonialism and the fate of refugees». Now, in his first new novel following the prize, he has turned his focus closer to our own time. The novel has been titled Theft. But what is stolen, and who is the thief?In a postcolonial East Africa in the early 1990s, marked by global change, we meet the oy Badar. He is sent away from his foster parents in Zanzibar to serve a rich family on the mainland, in Dar es Salaam. He feels inferior and ignorant, but is soon embraced by the son of the house, Karim. When Badar is later accused of stealing from his employer, he gets to move in with Karim and his fiancée, Fauzia.In a finely tuned and precise language, Gurnah portrays the deeply human experiences of the three young people, through trials and tribulations as they grow up, and he explores human relations with characteristic empathy and eye for alienation.Abdulrazak Gurnah is professor of postcolonial literature, and the author of eleven novels, among them the critically acclaimed Paradise and Afterlives. Gurnah is a master of allusion, and in an understated language, he creates recognizable, flawed characters, always with a keen eye for those feeling like outsiders.One who has followed Gurnah’s writing for years, and also been mentored by him herself, is author and historian Nadifa Mohamed. She joined Gurnah for a conversation about theft and trust, betrayal and belonging.The conversation took place the University of Oslo’s Ceremonial Hall.The event is supported by NORAD. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

French Moroccan Leïla Slimani‘s own family was the inspiration when she started her critically acclaimed trilogy: The Country of Others, Watch Us Dance and this year’s publication, J'emporterai le feu (“I will carry the fire”).We follow the Belhaj family through three generations, from when Mathilde leaves France to follow her new husband Amine to his home country Morocco after the second world war, and their struggle to find their place between two cultures that are rather hostile to each other, to their daughter, Aïcha through her childhood in Morocco and studies in France, before the last book takes the story up to our time through Aïcha’s daughter Mia.This epic family saga contains love stories and sex, violence and racism, while the family’s path is continually affected by the historical currents of Morocco and the wider world. French Mathilde grapple with the strict role for women in the Moroccan countryside, while her daughter Aïcha feels ogled and set apart as a Moroccan in France. In a vibrant and immediate language, Slimani portrays the various family members’ struggles to belong, and to create a home and a family.Leïla Slimani is one of the most central Francophone authors today. Her definitive breakthrough came with the award-winning thriller Lullaby, for which she was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016. She has written a number of critically acclaimed novels and non fiction titles.Slimani was joined by associate professor of French literature, Kjerstin Aukrust, for a conversation about home, belonging and a family history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With her deep and fearless portrayals of German and European history, Jenny Erpenbeck is a unique voice in world literature. Her authorship is widely considered to be among the most important of our time, leaving critics to discuss when, and not if she receives the Nobel prize for literature. This year, her latest novel Kairos was awarded the International Booker prize. In Kairos, we follow an increasingly dysfunctional couple, mirroring the dying nation state of the DDR, where the novel is set. It is a novel about love and passion, but equally about the relationship between power and the arts.In her writing, Erpenbeck combines an acute awareness of history with succinct prose and a daring sense of form and composition. Through short stories, essays, plays and a host of critically acclaimed novels, she explores themes such as identity and memory and shows us the human costs of totalitarian regimes. How does the past continue to shape our present and future?Now, Erpenbeck is joined by author and editor Mattis Øybø at the House of Literature for a conversation on a dark and burning European history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

«The security guard adores babies. Perhaps because babies do not shoplift.Babies adore the security guard. Perhaps because he does not drag babies to the sales.»In a Sephora-store on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, a security guard is watching the shoppers. In the early 70’s, Ferdinand arrives in Paris to start his new life and needs to learn the ropes. In the 90’s, friends Ossiri and Kassoum work nights in the Parisian underground.Three generations of immigrants tell their stories in Standing Heavy, the sensational debut novel from author Armand Patrick Gbaka-Bredé, better known as GauZ’. With playful language, an eventful plot, and tons of observational humour, Standing Heavy is a devilish comedy about France’s colonial heritage seen through the eyes of the service class.GauZ’ is a French-Ivorian author, editor and publisher based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The novel Debout-Payé was lauded by critics when it was released in 2014, and in 2023 the English translation was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.At the House of Literature, GauZ’ meets author and journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam for a conversation on class, capitalism and the security guard. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

«Water remembers. It is humans who forget.»A droplet of water finds its way from ancient Mesopotamia to a street urchin in 1840’s London and on to a Yazidi family in present day Iraq. Three people’s lives and destinies are connected by two rivers – the Thames and the Tigris – and the water which flows through them.In the novel There Are Rivers in the Sky, Elif Shafak weaves together lost empires, colonial plunder, modern conflicts, and the study of water in a plot stretching from ancient time to the present. With thrill, humour and evocative language, There Are Rivers in the Sky is both enthralling and fascinating, and has been lauded by authors such as Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Mary Beard.Turkish-British Elif Shafak is one of the world’s foremost writers of historical fiction. Through her fourteen novels, she has explored cultural tensions and socioeconomic inequalities between East and West in historical and contemporary settings. She has also been an active champion of the freedom of speech and of human rights, particularly women’s rights, an activism evident in both her fiction and non-fiction. She lives in London in self-imposed exile, after past and continuing threats in Turkey against her work as an author.At the House of Literature, Shafak meets author and journalist Marte Spurkland for a conversation on time, cultural conflicts, and the memory of water. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan British writer, known for her debut novel Kintu, as well as the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Woman. She has been awarded the Coomonwealth Short Story Prize and the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and also been named one of the 100 most influental Africans by New African magazine.This is Makumbi’s reading list:Brit Bennett, The Vanishing HalfYvonne Battle-Felton, Curdle CreekChinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart                           Arrow of GoodNgugi wa Thiong’oWole SoyinkaNamwali Serpell, The Old Drift                            The FurrowsAyọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Stay With MeAyesha Haruna Attah, The Hundred Wells of SalagaLeila Aboulela, Lyrics Alley                        River Spirit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois to activist Malcolm X, from heads of state Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Gaddafi to poet Aimé Césaire and artist Bob Marley – they have all played a role in the history of panafricanism.Panafricanism is a political, intellectual and cultural movement that was first formed around the turn of the last century among Africans in the diaspora, in the UK, the US and the West Indies. They fought for a shared, Black identity, for decolonization of the African continent, and for the Black diaspora to return to Africa to strengthen the continent – with some even calling for a United States of Africa.What role has panafricanism played in the fight for independence in different African countries, and in the creation of Black art, culture and identity? And what is the significance of the new wave of panafricanism today?Hakim Adi is an award-winning professor of history and writer, and the first historian with African roots to become a professor of history in the UK. In this lecture, he will provide a broad introduction to the history of panafricanism.The event was part of Black History Month Norway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the wake of #metoo, the French literary scene has been marked by multiple stories of sexual abuse. Books like Vanessa Springora's Consent and Camille Kouchner's The Familia Grande have sparked debates about abuse culture, consent, and the misuse of authority.Neige Sinno's Sad Tiger can be read as part of this line of publications, while also giving the conversation a literary context. While it is necessary to denounce abuse, doing so is also a burden, and Sinno’s approach to dealing with her own story is to turn to fiction. Through analysis of literary works by authors like Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison and Virginie Despentes, she explores power and powerlessness, cultural bias, and finding a language to talk about these experiences.Neige Sinno is a French author and doctor of American literature. Sad tiger is her literary breakthrough, both in France and internationally. A bestseller and the winner of a long list of literary prizes, including Prix Femina, Prix Littéraire Le Monde, and Prix Goncourt des lycéens, the book has been endorsed by authors like Annie Ernaux and Kathrine Nedrejord.Hadia Tajik is a Norwegian politician for Arbeiderpartiet, with a background in journalism, human rights, and law. She will meet Sinno for a conversation on abuse culture and misuse of authority, and how to use fiction as a gateway to shared experiences. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades, African speculative fiction has weaved together past and future, combining myths and legends with space exploration and social criticism and broadening the scope of both African and speculative literatures.In this original lecture, invited by The House of Literature and recorded digitally, Nigerian author Wole Talabi presents a timeline of African speculative fiction from its early beginnings and until the present day. Here, he reflects on the influence and importance of the genre, citing its central works and defining its distinguishing features.Wole Talabi is a Nigerian engineer and author of speculative fiction currently living in Perth, Australia. His published works include the short story collections Incomplete Solutions (2019) and Convergence Problems (2024), as well as the novel Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon (2023), which won the Nommo award for best novel in 2024. His short stories have been nominated for and won several awards, including the Sidewise, Nommo and Locus awards, as well as being awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing.Talabi also compiled a database of published works of African speculative fiction, which he edited from 2015 to 2021. He is also the editor of several anthologies of African speculative fiction, including the landmark publication Africanfuturism. An Anthology (2020) and remains one of the field’s chief advocates and central thinkers.Works mentioned:Early Works (1930s – 1960s):Jean-Louis Njemba Medou – Nnanga Kon (1932)Muhammadu Bello Kagara – Gandoki (1934)D.O. Fagunwa – Forest of a Thousand Daemons (1938)Amos Tutuola – The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952)Post-Independence Flourish (1960s – early 2000s):Sony Labou Tansi – Life and A Half (1979)Buchi Emecheta – The Rape of Shavi (1983)Kojo Laing – Woman of the Aeroplanes (1988)Ben Okri – The Famished Road (1991)Kojo Laing – Major Gentl and Achimota Wars (1992)Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o – The Wizard of the Crow (2004/2006)The Internet Age and Genre Recognition (early 2000s – early 2010’s)Nnedi Okorafor – Zahrah the Windseeker (2005)Ahmed Khaled Towfik – Utopia (2008) Lauren Beukes – Moxyland (2008)Lauren Beukes – Zoo City (2010)Nnedi Okorafor – Who Fears Death (2010)Ivor Hartmann (ed.) – Afro SF (2012)Increasing Global Recognition (2010s – present):Deji Bryce Olukotun – Nigerians in Space (2014)Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi – Kintu (2014) Tade Thompson – Rosewater (2016)Tochi Onyebuchi – Beasts Made of Night (2017)Akwaeke Emezi – Freshwater (2018)Namwali Serpell – The Old Drift (2019)Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki – Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon (2020)Other works mentioned:Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958)Helen Oyeyemi – The Icarus Girl (2005)Wole Talabi – Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon (2023)Weird Tales, fantasy and horror magazineJungle Jim, bi-monthly African pulp fiction magazineOmenana Speculative fiction magazineBlack Panther (dir. Ryan Coogler, 2018)“Afro-mythology and African futurism”, essay by Pamela Phatsimo SunstrumNnedi Okorafor – “Spider the Artist”Phoenix, publishing imprint at Ouida BooksMother, publishing imprint by Jacana MediaChikodili Emelumadu – Dazzling (2023)Yvette Lisa Ndlovu – Drinking from Graveyard Wells (2023)Pemi Aguda – Ghostroots (2024)Tlotlo Tsamaase – Womb City (2024)Suyi Davies Okungbowa – Warrior of The Wind (2023)T. L. Huchu – The Library of The Dead (2021)The Sauúti collective Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The word «dictator» might make you think of a select few evil men of the past, who sat alone on their thrones and ruled far-flung kingdoms with an iron fist. Today’s reality is something very different: The autocrats of the world are playing on the same team, doing deals in secrecy to maintain power and keep their riches. They share troll farms and other resources across political lines, either they’re communists, nationalists, or Shia radicalists, and hide their wealth in tax havens all over the globe. And Western states play along.This is the current situation, as described by Anne Applebaum in Autocracy, Inc., her new book on the hidden network of autocrats and autocratic regimes that has blossomed since the turn of the century. In the book, Applebaum describes the golden age of dictatorship as she charts the political and economic ties that unite the dictators of the world – often with democratic states as useful idiots or direct facilitators.Anne Applebaum is one of the world’s foremost authors of history books, among others The Iron Curtain and the groundbreaking Red Famine. Stalin’s War with Ukraine. As a journalist and writer, she is a central voice in the U.S. and Eastern European political scenes and a fierce critic of Western states’ moves away from democratic values and principles.Nils August Andresen is a historian and editor of the newspaper Minerva. Since his days as a student in Russia, he has been particularly interested in Putin’s rise to power and the threats towards international order.Applebaum met Andresen on stage for a conversation on the new world order – and how they’re getting away with it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When British-Ugandan Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi wanted her debut novel Kintu published in Europe, publisher after publisher told her no – the novel was “too African”: It was neither about the colonial period nor about Idi Amin, the two things about Uganda that Western readers have heard of. And also, the characters had such complicated names. They couldn’t imagine any European readers would like to learn something new about Uganda and its history.Makumbi’s novel is an epic family saga, taking us through the history of Uganda – from the kingdom of Buganda before the arrival of the Europeans, and up to today’s society, in which she combines myths and Biblical history with fairytales and oral storytelling tradition. In a distilled, lyrical language, we meet the patriarch Kintu in the mid-eighteenth century, when he is subject to a dark curse, before we follow his many descendants into our own time, where they all, in different ways, struggle with curses of their own. We particularly see how the men of the family struggle to live up to society’s masculine ideals. Maybe this is the real curse, affecting each of their lives and slowly poisoning the entire society?Kintu is Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s first novel, published in 2014 after she won a manuscript competition by Kenyan Kwani Trust. Makumbi has since published the short story collection Manchester Happened and the novel The First Woman, and she has won a number of awards for her writing.At the House of Literature, she is joined by author and creative director for the organization Radical Books Collective, Bhakti Shringarpure, for a conversation about a family and a nation, about curses and consolation.The event was supported by NORAD. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sonia Nasir is a somewhat successful actor in London. After a distressing end to a love affair, she travels to see her sister in Haifa, Israel, where their father’s family is from, and where she’s hardly been since she was a teenager. Soon, she is pulled into a local theatre production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet on the West Bank. And as the past catches up with Sonia, ghosts appear off stage as well.Enter Ghost is a complex and skillfully composed novel, an exploration of identity and belonging, the role of art, community, and the painful story of a family and a people.Isabella Hammad is a British-Palestinian author. Her debut novel The Parisian won a number of awards, including the Betty Trask Award and the Palestine Book Award, and I 2023, she was included on Granta’s prestigious list of Best young British Novelists. Enter Ghost is her second novel.Priya Bains is a poet, an activist and editor of the literary magazine Vinduet. She will join Hammad for a conversation about ghosts and sisters, Hamlet and the occupation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When she began her masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale in 1984, Margaret Atwood was living in West Berlin, just a stone’s throw away from the Wall to East Berlin, with its omnipresent secret police. The world behind the Iron Curtain clearly influenced her famous future dystopia, in which she set as a rule that she would not include any horrors that humans had not already done in some other place or time in history.On the other side of the Wall, author Jenny Erpenbeck grew up in the east, the German Democratic Republic (DDR), experiencing the country’s zenith as well as its disintegration and the victorious capitalist West just a few years later. In her award winning body of work, Erpenbeck has gone on to explore the complex history of Germany and greater Europe, where ordinary citizens become hostages to the grand ideas and ruptures of the times.Both Atwood and Erpenbeck are concerned with totalitarianism, with history and how it informs the present and the future, with our fragile normality, and how quickly it can turn into brutality. While they write lyrical and innovative fiction - incorporating mythology, literature and philosophy - the links to the world around us, either past, present or futures we are headed towards, are always there.Margaret Atwood has published more than 70 books of poetry, short story collections, novels, children’s books,and essay collections. Stories like The Handmaid’s Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy have made her a name across the world, and a number of her books have been adapted to film, TV, opera and ballet, and, like Erpenbeck, she is regularly mentioned as a favorite for the Nobel prize in literature.Jenny Erpenbeck is the author of a number of critically acclaimed and award winning novels, short story collections, plays and essays. Her latest novel, Kairos, won the 2024 International Booker Prize.In this event, these two exceptional authors met for the first time on stage, for a conversation about history and society, memory and hope for the future. The conversation was moderated by Helge Jordheim, professor of cultural history at the University of Oslo.The conversation took place on November 2st, 2024 in The University of Oslo's Ceremonial Hall. LitHouse is a podcast from the House of Literature in Oslo, presenting adapted versions of lectures and conversations featuring international writers and thinkers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian author Margaret Atwood is a living legend. Since her debut in 1961 with the poetry collection Double Persephone, she has published more than 70 books of poetry, short story collections, novels, children’s books, essay collections and even opera librettos, including the world-renowned novels The Handmaid’s Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy. Atwood has truly made her mark with her literary explorations of totalitarianism, patriarchal structures and environmental destruction, and is known for her almost prophetic speculative fiction, set in societies curbing women’s rights or experiencing a worldwide pandemic or environmental collapse.In her literature, Atwood is mischievous, fearless and original, frequently incorporating elements from classical texts, fairytales and works by writers like William Shakespeare or George Orwell. While her books often include elements from historical events, they also suggest new worlds and possibilities for the future.Atwood was joined by journalist and writer Karin Haugen for a conversation about the past and the present, prophetic stories and her unique body of work. This conversation was hosted by The House of Literature in Oslo and took place on October 31st, 2024 at the Oslo Opera House. LitHouse is a podcast from The House of Literature in Oslo, presenting adapted versions of lectures and conversations featuring international writers and thinkers. Music by Apothek. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.