Jean Echenoz on anti-heroes (FR)

« Écrivain est un mot noble, c’est difficile de se définir comme quelqu’un qui appartient à cette supposée noblesse. Cela me gênait de dire que j’étais écrivain. »

Asli Erdogan on torture and pain (ENG)

"Once the pain is over even your own body stops telling you what it was."

Laure Adler about Christian Boltanski (FR)

« L’histoire de ce livre est une histoire douloureuse pour moi (…) Christian Boltanski était mon voisin. »

Carsten Jensen on war and Afghanistan (ENG)

“It is quite demanding to have a civilian walking around in a war zone. It is like a baby crossing a motor highway.”

Bret Easton Ellis on Donald Trump (ENG)

“My partner is a lot more fun than that, okay?!...He’s incredibly intelligent and very funny and smart, but when it comes down to Trump he’s a mess.”

Mircea Cărtărescu on the magic of literature (ENG)

“…by reading you create the sensations, you create the thought, you create everything the writer suggested in his book. You do not get passively what the writer gives you, you have to re-create it. So you are the co-author of the book.”

Philippe Sands on civil courage (FR)

« Le droit ne peut pas imposer le courage civil, c’est quelque chose qui vient de nous-mêmes. La grande question, c’est en fait comment cultiver la possibilité que plus de personnes développent ce courage civil »

Tash Aw on inequality, discrimination and migration (ENG)

“The moment you get into that discourse of who was here first, who the country properly belongs to; then I think that is the beginning of a very dangerous spiral.”

Dima Matta on poetry, queerness and revolutions (ENG)

“We were an angry hopeful body, we were doomed to hope.”

Olivier Guez on the dictators of the 20th century (FR)

« Je trouvais qu’il manquait un ouvrage de référence sur ces thèmes-là. Finalement, il est rare, voire même unique, qu’on associe, dans un même ouvrage, Hitler, Mobutu et Enver Hoxha. »

Annie Ernaux on abortion and contraception (FR)

« Ce n’est pas parce que j’ai vécu un avortement en 1958, que, 50 ans plus tard - alors que les règles du monde ont changé - la honte ou la force de ce qui a été vécu ont changé »

Dima Wannous on love during the war in Syria (FR)

« Ce sont les révolutions arabes qui ont attiré l’attention de l’Occident sur nos cultures, nos pays. Avant ces révolutions, c’est comme si l’on n’existait pas. »

Karl Ove Knausgård on the borderline between life and literature (ENG)

“I was obsessed by the borderline between literature and life. … and I wanted to take literature as far into real life as possible. That was kind of an experiment. I just wanted it to be true or as realistic as possible."

Olga Tokarczuk on being a political writer (ENG)

"Sometimes I think I am too old to understand what is going on with this new young people. I don’t have access to them anymore. And I also worry, because I expected always and still expect that they will be my readers."

Curious about our live events? Discover the whole Writers & Thinkers season '21-22 here. 

Presentation & editing: Nicky Aerts (English) & Maïté Warland (French)
Realisation & production: Géraldine Lenseclaes & Tom Van de Voorde
Communication: Lotte Poté & Amber Demuynck 
Editing, mixing & mastering: Thibault Heineken