Race and Cultural Identities: a public interview with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Learning Lab:
Public Interview with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown 24 September 2010 at 12:30pm – 2:00pm, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle

FOMACS/BRITISH COUNCIL: PUBLIC INTERVIEW with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

We are pleased to invite you to a public interview with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, UK based broadcast journalist, writer and public speaker on race and cultural identities. Susan McKay, Director of the National Women’s Council will conduct the interview.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is visiting Dublin to participate in a FOMACS/British Council public education project, titled Learning Lab: Identities and Social Justice. For more on Learning Lab see: www.learninglab.ie

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown came to the UK in 1972 from Uganda after completing her undergraduate degree at Makerere University where she was awarded an exceptional first class degree in English. She went to Oxford as a postgraduate student and was awarded an M.Phil in literature in 1975. She is a journalist who has written for The Guardian, Observer, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Evening Standard, The Mail and other newspapers and is a regular columnist on The Independent and London’s Evening Standard. She is also a radio and television broadcaster and author of No Place Like Home, an autobiographical account of a twice-removed immigrant. From 1996 to 2001 she was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and published True Colours on the role of government on racial attitudes. Yasmin is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre. In 2000 she published Who Do We Think We Are? – an acclaimed book on the state of the British nation, in addition to After Multiculturalism which looks at the globalised future. She advises various key institutions on race matters. In June 1999, she received an honorary degree from the Open University for her contributions to social justice. In 2001 came the publication of the paperback Mixed Feelings a book on mixed race Britons.

In 2001 she was appointed an MBE for services to journalism in the New Year’s honours list. In 2003 she returned her MBE as a protest against the new imperial and illegal war in Iraq. In April 2004, her film on Islam for Channel 4 won an award and in May 2004, she received the EMMA award for best print journalist for her columns in the Independent. Her new book, The Settler’s Cookbook: A Memoir of Love, Migration and Food was published in the spring of 2009 and was book of the week on BBC Radio4.

Venue: Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle
Date: Friday, 24 September 2010
Time: 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm

For more information and to RSVP for this event, please contact: Ann Nolan or Maeve Burke at email: info.fomacs@dit.ie or tel: 01 4023006 by 12pm Thursday, 23 September 2010

Irish Encounters with…

Irish Encounters with…”,Meetings with Pawel Huelle form part of a series of public meetings with Polish contemporary novelists “Irish Encounters with…”, organised by the Ireland-Poland Cultural Foundation and the Polish Embassy in Dublin.

1. An audience with Pawe? Huelle

preceded by the screening of Weiser- film by W. Marczewski

On Tuesday, Oct 13 at 8.20 pm

in

The Irish Film Institute, Eustace Street, Dublin 2

Tickets available from the IFI box office: (01) 679 57 44

www.irishfilm.ie

2. In Conversation: Pawe? Huelle (writer)  and Antonia Lloyd – Jones (translator)

On Wednesday, Oct  14 at 6.30 pm

in

European Union House, 18 Dawson Street, D 2

Admission free. All welcome

Pawel Huelle – a novelist and author of a volume of verse, born in Gdansk in 1957, Huelle is a graduate in Polish of the Gdansk University, and has also worked in that city as an employee of the “Solidarity” press office. University lecturer, journalist, director of the Gdansk Polish Television Centre and, most recently, as a columnist for “Gazeta Wyborcza”, Huelle has found enormous success as a writer and been honoured with many prestigious awards.

His books were shortlisted to The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize twice: in 2006  (Mercedes Benz) and 2008 (Castorp). Castorp was also shortlisted to the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2008.

His books, and especially his first novel Weiser Davidek (1987, English title Who Was David Weiser?, Bloomsbury 1991)? classed by critics as “the book of the decade,” “a masterpiece” and “a literary triumph” ? have been widely translated. This was followed by Stories for a time of relocation, First love and other stories and The Last Supper. Huelle’s stories are set in various, scrupulously reconstructed places and historical periods ? although they remain associated for the most part with the author’s home town of Gdansk and its environs. They represent a record of the author’s own adolescence and his search for a mythical genealogy and spiritual roots.

“A writer whose work is full of depth and allusion” Independent on Sunday
“His style is charmingly effective…and gently, deceptively provocative” Observer

Antonia Lloyd-Jones – a leading translator of contemporary Polish prose into English. Among her many translations are Pawe? Huelle’s Mercedes Benz, Castorp, Last Supper, Who was David Weiser?, as well as House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk and The Birch Grove and Other Stories by Jaros?aw Iwaszkiewicz.

She received Found in Translation Award 2009 for her translation of Pawel Huelle’s Last Supper.

Weiser – a film based on a novel “Weiser Davidek” by Pawe? Huelle

It is a film about mystery of life and the world and an attempt to reach the truth. The quotidian reality mingles with the mystique, memory, not always keeping with the truth.

Polish film director Wojciech Marczewski, inspired by Dawid Weiser’s mysterious story written by Pawe? Huelle, created a film in which children’s adventure from the distant past affects the adulthood of heroes. In the summer of 1967 Pawe?, Piotr, Szymon and Elka, 12-year-old leads, meet a fascinating Jewish boy – Dawid Weiser, who discloses to them a world of magic and mysticism. Unfortunately, innocent children’s plays lead to a dramatic end. Thirty years after the tragic and still unexplained event, the male lead, Pawe? Heller tries to answer persistent question: Who was Weiser really?

The film gives a chance to admire brilliant performances by Polish most distinguished actors: Marek Kondrat, Krystyna Janda, Zbigniew Zamachowski, as well as the music composed by Zbigniew Preisner.

Organisers:        Ireland – Poland Cultural Foundation

Polish Embassy in Dublin

In cooperation with:      Irish Film Institute

Pomeranian Film Foundation

European Commission Representation in Ireland