LitFestBergen programme catalogue 2021 ENG

eng

Bergen International Literary Festival 10–14 February 2021

My Generation essay competition, writers (shortlist and longlist)

Tyrone, Zimbabwe

Elijah, Kenya

Fatma, Sudan Keri, Hong Kong SAR

Abhinita and Daniel, India Sarvnaz, Iran / Canada

Eric, Korea / US

Leen, Syria

Elisaveta, Moldova

Nikolaj and Marie, Denm

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mark

Enzo, Brazil

Malumi and Ugochukwu, Nigeria

Marie, Switzerland/ UK Dec, UK Halia, Scotland Julia, Norway

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CONTENTS: Tickets and festival office p Administration, boards and jury p Financial contributors p Festival partners p Festival director's introduction p Programme p Literature Live Around the World p Essay comptetion “My generation” p

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Bergen International Festival for Non-fiction and Fiction 10–14 February 2021 Theme 2021: Generations www.litfestbergen.no facebook.com/litfestbergen instagram.com/litfestbergen #litfestbergen

Contact info@litfestbergen.no +47 92288550 Bergen House of Literature Østre Skostredet 5-7 Norway

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Molde, Norway

Financial contributors City of Bergen Vestland county council Norwegian Cultural Fund Fritt Ord Grieg Foundation Sparebanken Vest Bergesen Foundation H Westfal-Larsen og Hustru Anna Westfal-Larsen’s Almennyttige Fond Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association (NFFO) Sámi Parliament of Norway North Norwegian Society of Authors Bergensavisen (Savings Bank Foundation)

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National partners Bergen House of Literature Bergen Public Library Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) Norwegian PEN Boksalongen Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association (NFFO) Bergen Union of Journalists (BJ) Norwegian Association of Literary Translators (NO) University Museum, Natural History Torborg Nedreaas Association Bright Kulturoperatørene Northing Colonialen

International partners Nordic Council literature prizes Global Association of Literary Festivals Writer’s House, Kabul, Afghanistan Writing Western Australia, Perth Filba Internacional, Buenos Aires, Argentina Toronto International Festival of Authors, Canada Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, Dubai Villa Gillet, Lyon, France Jaipur Literature Festival, India Calabash International Literary Festival, Jamaica Aké Books and Arts Festival, Lagos, Nigeria Edinburgh International Book Festival, Scotland Bay Area Book Festival, California, USA

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Administration Teresa Grøtan, festival and managing director Hjørdis Losnedahl, programme and production adviser Yngve Knausgård, communication adviser Board Birthe Kåfjord Lange, chair Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde Arne Selvik Anne Karin Sæther Gunnar Sørbø

Norwegian advisory board Pedro Carmona-Alvarez Jan H Landro Sandra Lillebø Eirik Vassenden Gunnhild Øyehaug International advisory board Tishani Doshi (India) Alisa Ganieva (Russia) Leila Guerriero (Argentina) Daniel Medin (USA/France) Jonny Steinberg (South Africa/UK) Ece Temelkuran (Turkey) Jury, essay competition “My generation” Alisa Ganieva (Russia) Daniel Medin (USA/France) Sandra Lillebø (Norway) Jonny Steinberg (South Africa/UK) Ece Temelkuran (Turkey) English translation: Rolf E Gooderham

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Listen to my crazy heartbeat Teresa Grøtan Festival director In June 2020, the Bergen International Literary Festival invited young people below the age of 30 to write an essay about their own generation. We received 550 contributions from 90 countries. One was written by 25-year-old Leen Alarbaji Alsayegh from Syria under the title The map of us. She says the following about her essay: “This clingy war has been stalking us like our shadows, trying to bite off our hearts.

Yet we are still here somehow. Just listen to my crazy heartbeat. Restless will I be, until violence melts in the arms of understanding.”

Listen to my crazy heartbeat! Leen loads her gun with literature and fires at the reader. In a youthful and intensive way, she writes about everyday life in wartime, and with literary will and beating heart describes a bleak time which no official document could capture.

Leen’s contribution is not alone in depicting darkness and fears for the future. Young people today face difficult times – and they know it.

But her essay also reveals a strong will to live and to create literature. This will recalled for me a day in August 1989, when I sat on a sun-warmed stone step outside the post office in the Norwegian town of Stokmarknes and opened a parcel containing five copies of Vi er framtida (We are the future). This book included two of my poems, and it would be hard to exaggerate the happiness it aroused in 15-year-old me. I hope that Leen and the 18 others whose name and photograph appears in this catalogue will enjoy that same good feeling.

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“Generations” is the theme for this year’s festival, and our attention is focused particularly on the young. According to an international survey (Pisa, 2019), every fourth 15-year-old boy in Norway finds reading such a struggle that it can create problems for studying and working.

Just think if we could help to ignite the literary spark! Think if young people discover how literature can confer courage and strength, clarity of thought and passion in the heart.

We have expanded our youth programme this year, and are allowing youngsters themselves to interview the authors on stage.

We are also presenting a major global collaboration in 2021. Literature Live Around the World involves 11 literary partners from Australia’s Perth in the west to San Francisco in the east. Each has taken on a different aspect of our festival: reconciliation in Jaipur, cross generation conversation in Lagos, new poetry in Kabul and the unexpected in Edinburgh. We end with dub poetry on the beach in Jamaica, while the rain – probably – pours down outside the brick walls of the House of Literature in Bergen.

LitFestBergen is the place where the un­known meets the known, where voices which have fallen silent in their homeland are heard, where new writers meet established authors, and where we all – young, old or middle-aged – open our senses to absorb words and language, acclaim and surprise, joy and despair, and let these ferment within until we feel Leen’s crazy young heart beating in each and every one of us.

Drop by Boksalongen for browsing, coffee breaks and book signings by visiting authors throughout the festival.

The independent bookshop at the Bergen House of Literature.

LITTERATURHUSET I BERGEN

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How t o bu y a t ick e t • Follow the ticket link at litfestbergen.no to TicketCo.no.

• Before the festival: buy a ticket in Boksalongen at the House of Literature.

• During the festival: buy a ticket at the festival office opposite Boksalongen/the House of Literature at Østre Skostredet 10.

Are you a student? We have big student discounts on all programme sessions. Remember your student ID. Because of the pandemic, it will unfortunately not be possible to buy a festival pass in 2021.

Much of the festival can be experienced free of charge, either at the House of Literature or as a streamed event via www.litfestbergen. no and YouTube. Check the programme for more information.

To obtain a ticket for the free events at the House of Literature, you must visit the ticket office on the same day in order to get a free ticket and information on when to attend.

Follow litfestbergen.no for updated information, including on the streamed programme.

Opening times, festival office Monday 8 February: Tuesday 9 February: Wednesday 10 February: Thursday 11 February: Friday 12 February: Saturday 13 February: Sunday 14 February:

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11.00–15.00 11.00–15.00 11.00–22.00 11.00–22.00 11.00–22.00 11.00–23.00 11.00–17.00

WEDNESDAY 10 FEBRUARY

Official Opening of LitFestBergen 2021 Wednesday 10 February 18.30–19.30 Auditoriet Free Norwegian/English

Welcome to the opening of the third Bergen International Literary Festival for Non-Fiction and Fiction. The ceremony includes performances by festival authors Karoline Brændjord, Alwynne Pritchard, Domizia Tosatto, Fatemeh Ekhtesari and musician Sigrid Moldestad, and a speech by festival director Teresa Grøtan.

M y g e n e r at i o n :

unveiling the best essay Wednesday 10 February 19.45–20.30 Ol av H Hauge Free (Will also be streamed) English

LitFestBergen staged a global competition in the autumn of 2020 for young people under the age of 30. Challenging them to write an essay entitled My generation, we asked: what characterises your generation? What encourages you and what enrages you? Entries came from 550 young people in 90 nations. You can read the contributions from the finalists on pages 78–87 of this catalogue. Juror Sandra Lillebø and festival director Teresa Grøtan present them and the winner, and musician Sigrid Moldestad performs.

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Pandemic, people and literature A year has passed since the pandemic put the world out of action. What has this time been like? And what will the long-term consequences be, not least for the youngest generation? How did earlier pandemics affect society and the economy, the literature written, and the way people thought?

Social anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, biologist Dag O Hessen, literary scholar Frode Helmich Pedersen and journalist Hilde Sandvik discuss the consequences which the past year might have for people and nature, and how these could find literary expression.

Wednesday 10 February 20.00–21.00 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) norwegian

Open mike LitFestBergen is a festival where the familiar meets the unfamiliar, and established literature engages in a dialogue with the very latest writing.

Poet Fredrik Stenhjem Hagen invites new-fledged and more experienced authors from Bergen and the rest of the world to take the microphone. Use the festival’s open offer this evening and let your voice be heard.

Register at info@litfestbergen.no

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Wednesday 10 February 21.00–22.30 Ol av H Hauge Free Norwegian / English

The mundane and the mystical: A conversation with Karl Ove Knausgård Wednesday 10 February 21.30–22.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) English

When Karl Ove Knausgård published Morgenstjernen in Norway in 2020 (The Morning Star, due in English translation spring 2021), it was his first major novel since the My Struggle series. The plot unfolds on a warm day in late summer, some years into the future. A new star appears in the sky.

Through nine different people from various generations, together and alone at different places around Norway, the author depicts the magical and the mystifying.

Knausgård will be interviewed from his home in London

by Roland Gulliver, director of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. With Morgenstjernen as their starting point, they will plunge into the author’s literary universe – the mundane and the mystical, the simple and the supernatural, the unpleasant and the beautiful. And what is it about Bergen which makes it such a good frame for an apocalyptic story?

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THURSDAY 11 FEBRUARY

Natural wonders I Surrounded by wolves, elephants, bears, whales, beetles and flowers in the newly-restored Natural History Museum at Muséplass 1, biology professor Dag O Hessen will talk about the wonders of nature.

What responsibility do humans, young and old, bear for what is happening to nature and the climate around the world? Is there hope? Hessen believes the answer is yes.

But we must not leave the clean-up to later generations.

Everyone – not least those studying nature and the climate – must now write and speak up about what is happening.

In Verden på vippepunktet, he urges us all to get involved.

Thursday 11 February 11.00–11.30 The Universit y museum, Natur al history 120 / 80 (student) Norwegian

C ro s s- g e n e r at i o n c o n v e rsat i o n I:

newspaper columns then and now “This is a commentary, which expresses the writer’s analyses and opinions.” That was how a newspaper used to describe a columnist’s contribution. Sven Egil Omdal has long experience as one of Norway’s most widely read newspaper columnists, currently in Stavanger Aftenblad.

Eirin Eikefjord is political editor of Bergens Tidende and head of its comment department. Jens Kihl interviews them about how such commentary has changed over the years, and what happens when a column gets so long that it becomes a book.

In cooperation with the Bergen Union of Journalists (BJ).

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Thursday 11 February 16.30–17.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Free for BJ members Norwegian

What is a novel?

Thursday 11 February 18.00–19.00 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

What does “truth” mean in a novel? Even since Karl Ove Knausgård’s My struggle series first appeared, a debate has raged over what a novel actually is and whether any limits exist to what you can write about others in this format.

How does the Norwegian novel genre compare with the British-American memoir tradition or the French autofiction genre? And have Norwegian views about the novel changed over the past two decades, or is it the same debate but just with new authors?

LitFestBergen stages a discussion between Sandra Lillebø, who published the controversial but highly praised Tingenes tilstand, Aftenposten critic Ingunn Økland and Nordic literature professor Eirik Vassenden. Their conversation will be moderated by novelist Tore Renberg.

L ect u r e o n a c l as s i c :

Flowers of evil Thursday 11 February 18.15–19.00 Alver 120 / 80 (student ) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

It will 200 years in 2021 since the birth of French poet Charles Baudelaire. LitFestBergen celebrates this anniversary with two events on his most famous work, Les Fleurs du Mal from 1857. Per Buvik, professor emeritus in comparative literature at the University of Bergen, will talk about the poems, which were both acclaimed and condemned in their day. And musician Susanna, who has set some of the poems to music, will give a concert on Friday evening entitled Baudelaire & Piano.

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Semi-final in Norwegian poetry slam championship A slam lies somewhere at the intersection between poetry readings, rap and spoken word. During this semi-­ final, competitors present their own texts in Norwegian or English. Performance counts as much as the textual content.

The competition is open to everyone, regardless of age or experience. Host for the evening is Heidi Marie Vestrheim, who will select groups of jurors from among the audience – which choose who can claim the title of west Norwegian poetry slam champion. The winner will take part in the na-­ tional final in Oslo during the autumn of 2021.

Sign up at info@litfestbergen.no

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Thursday 11 February 19.30–22.30 Ol av H Hauge Free (Will also be streamed) Norwegian/English

c ro s s- g e n e r at i o n c o n v e rsat i o n I I:

Natural pleasures Thursday 11 February 19.30–20.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) English

Sixteen-year-old Dara McAnulty from Ireland has only one goal – to protect the natural world he loves. Published in 2019, his book Diary of a Young Naturalist won great acclaim and a number of awards. McAnulty is autistic, and describes how nature experiences calm his senses. Professor and author Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson has a similar goal – telling everyone what nature gives and creates which not only benefits us humans but is also essential for our lives.

She presents that through incredible true stories in her På naturens skuldre (On the Shoulders of Nature).

Two generations of nature-lovers meet for a conversation on the natural world, literature, what can give pleasure and what motives them, with Kari Jegerstedt as moderator.

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Beloved sister, beloved brother Authors Maria Navarro Skaranger and Odd Eirik Sætre Færevåg have written, in the novel Bok om sorg and the short-story collection Den vesle jenta og havet respectively, about the death of siblings. They describe the challenges for parents tackling such a loss, and how the surviving child – and later adult – thinks back and lives with the bereavement.

What role can literature play for a grieving person?

Skaranger and Færevåg meet Eivind Normann-Eide, psychology specialist and author of Skjønnlitterære selvmord, for a conversation.

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Thursday 11 February 21.00-22.00 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) Norwegian

Literature live around the world

FRIDAY 12 FEBRUARY Friday 12 February 12.00-00.00 Ol av H Hauge English

12 hours | 12 countries Bergen INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL norway writing western australia Writer’s House afghanistan Jaipur LITERARY FESTIVAL india Emirates Airline Festival of Literature uaE Aké Books and Arts nigeria Filba Internacional argentina Edinburgh international book festival uk Assises Internationales du Roman france BAY AREA BOOK FESTIVAL usa Toronto International festival of Authors canada CALABASH FESTIVAL jamaica 20

Literature Live Around the World LitFestBergen’s big commitment in 2021 is the Literature Live Around the World collaboration project. We have invited festivals and literature centres worldwide to create literary programmes on their own stages with their selected authors and other artists. We are live and direct from 12.00 to 00.00 – non-stop!

All the partners show a brief video where they present their town, culture, language and literature. We then connect Bergen to the world in best Eurovision Song Contest style, and presenters Siss Vik and Mona B Riise have an introductory chat with the host in the relevant city. The literary programme follows for the enjoyment of audiences both locally and in the Bergen House of Literature, as well as for everyone worldwide who wants to follow it, completely free, on their own screens.

Join this literary voyage to every continent! We begin with a reading by Karl Ove Knausgård and a great Norwegian programme in Bergen before “travelling” to the Writer's House in Kabul, taking the literary big-city pulse at Lagos in Nigeria and meeting well-known authors in San Francisco. We visit the world’s biggest literary festival at Jaipur in India, stroll the streets of Buenos Aires, enjoy a young and hard-hitting programme from the renowned literary festival in Edinburgh, and conclude with dub poetry at sunset in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. And a lot more!

Please see litfestbergen.no for the programme and authors from all countries.

In collaboration with Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).

Buy either three-hour or 12-hour tickets if you want to follow the pro­ gramme live in the House of Literature.

12.00–15.00: Bergen/Perth/Kabul: NOK 180 / 80 (student) / free (streaming) 15.00–18.00: Jaipur/Dubai/Lagos: NOK 180 / 80 (student) / free (streaming) 18.00–21.00: Buenos Aires/Edinburgh/Lyon: NOK 180 / 80 (student) / free (streaming) 21.00–00.00: Berkeley/Toronto/Treasure Beach: NOK 180 / 80 (student) / free (streaming) 12.00–00.00: Whole world: NOK 480 / 280 (student) / free (streaming)

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Natural wonders II Friday 12 February 12.00-12.30 The Universit y Museum, natur al history 120 / 80 (student) Norwegian

Surrounded by wolves, elephants, bears, whales, beetles and flowers in the newly-restored Natural History Museum at Muséplass 1, conservation biology professor Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson will talk about the wonders of nature.

Millions of species provide us with food, medicines and a livable environment in surprising and incredible ways.

Sverdrup-Thygeson maintains that we now face a crisis for nature – not just for the climate – and that risks such as pandemics will grow unless they are taken seriously.

Her book På naturens skuldre (On the Shoulders of Nature) relates one fantastic story after the other, and she introduces the audience in this lecture to nature’s fine-tuned interactions.

City walk: Torborg Nedreaas Friday 12 February 12.45-14.15 Musépl ass 1, by the Christie statue 180 / 80 (student) Norwegian

Join a stroll around Bergen in the footsteps of author Torborg Nedreaas.

Through her three books about Herdis, Trylleglasset (1950), Musikk fra en blå brønn (1960) and Ved neste nymåne (1971), Nedreaas (1906–87) proved a highly distinctive chronicler of the city. We follow the heroine from childhood wandering in the rain on Møhlenpris through visits to various parts of the city, “in the country”, as the local dialect has it, and to her grandparents at Marken and Sandviken.

Nedreaas describes TB, alcoholism, violence and assault and presents brutal social divisions. The reader witnesses the big city fire of 1916 and human upturns and downturns, but also sees the world through a magic mirror and hears enticing music from the well.

Historian Jo Gjerstad and literary scholar Grethe Fatima Syéd – who also chairs the Torborg Nedreaas Association – will guide participants through key parts of the author’s Bergen.

In collaboration with the Torborg Nedreaas Association.

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C ro s s- g e n e r at i o n c o n v e rsat i o n I I I

Can everyone say what they like?

What is actually free speech? The Norwegian government has appointed a new commission on freedom of expression, 20 years after its predecessor. At the same time, Norwegian PEN and the Fritt Ord foundation have established a Norwegian Youth Forum for Freedom of Expression to investigate what prevents young people expressing themselves in Norway today.

Who speaks up at school, at work, in the public arena? What role does religion play in what is said? How big a problem are “fake news” and hate speech on social media? Kjersti Løken Stavrum and Nancy Herz, who chair the commission and the forum respectively, will be coming to LitFestBergen to debate with Mohamed Abdi on conditions for free expression in Norway today.

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Friday 12 February 16.30-17.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) Norwegian

What happened, Tollak?

Friday 12 February 17.45-18.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

Tore Renberg has published 16 novels and a number of children’s books since his literary debut in 1995, as well as working with theatre, film and music. In his latest novel, Tollak til Ingeborg, we meet an angry old man who lashes out at everyone and everything. At the same time, he is the bearer of a terrible secret.

What ails Tollak? And Ingeborg? Renberg meets non-fiction author and journalist Inger Merete Hobbelstad for a conversation on patterns of life old and new and a changing masculine ideal.

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Baudelaire & Piano The 200th anniversary of the birth of French poet Charles Baudelaire falls in 2021. LitFestBergen is celebrating the occasion with a concert by artist and composer Susanna Wallumrød, who has set 10 poems to music from Baudelaire’s best-known work, Les Fleurs du Mal. The Baudelaire & Piano album is a solo release in the true sense of the word.

With Susanna providing piano, vocals and whistling, the soundtrack with her soulful voice is stripped right down – accompanied only by a trancelike piano.

We meet a sinister gallery of roles – witches, heathens, wolves, deviants, brutes, ghosts, vampires and evil spirits.

The songs move between desire and ecstasy, angels and demons, tenderness and sadism.

Susanna received outstanding acclaim from critics both at home and abroad when the album appeared in September 2020. The Guardian praised her “luminous voice”, her “clarity”, her “strong melodies” and for “communicating wordless emotions” in the meeting between poetry and piano. For its part, Dagbladet called it “powerful and captivating”. Welcome to the concert.

Susanna – voice and piano Ingar Hunskaar – sound

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Friday 12 February 19.15-20.15 & 21.00-22.00 Auditoriet 280 / 180 (student) English

SATURDAY 13 FEBRUARY

Is the road the goal?

Saturday 13 February 12.00–13.00 Ol av H Hauge 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian / English

Ninety per cent of journeys in Norway are made by car, making Norway one of the most car-dependent countries in the world. And the car has shaped the development of the city of Bergen.

That has been a conscious policy, maintains Ulrik Eriksen in his book Et land på fire hjul. He demonstrates how facilitating the car has had major consequences for planning, development and settlement in Norway, particularly in the towns. It has moved from being confined to the wealthy to perhaps the quintessential mass-market object. Eriksen discusses motoring and politics with Bergens Tidende journalist Hans K Mjelva.

Is there any way back? How should Norway and Bergen deal with transport and traffic in the future? Researcher Siddharth Sareen joins Eriksen on stage to discuss car-free zones, the light rail system and what tomorrow might bring.

The final minutes will be allocated to questions from the audience.

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Flight, prison, freedom Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani fled his Iranian homeland for Australia in 2013. Instead of offering a safe haven, the Australian government interned him and other refugees on Manus Island far out in the Pacific. Here he witnessed hunger, torture and suicide. Boochani wrote the whole time, and smuggled out thousands of text messages which formed the basis of the autobiographical No Friends But the Mountains. Recently published in Norwegian, it received great critical acclaim and won Australia’s prize for best non-fiction book in 2019 among other awards. Boochani was among the imprisoned authors included in LitFestBergen’s PEN postcard campaign in 2019.

What sort of reception do asylum-seekers receive in western society today? Via a video link from his new homeland of New Zealand, Boochani meets Ann-Magrit Austenå, former general secretary of the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers (Noas) and Kristina Quintano, writer, publisher and human rights activist, for a conversation on flight, prison, freedom and literature.

In collaboration with Norwegian PEN.

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Saturday 13 February 12.00–12.45 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) English

T h e wo r l d o n Sat u r day:

USA – OK again?

Saturday 13 February 13.15–14.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

Can Joe Biden re-unite the USA? And what does America’s election of its first female vice president signify?

Tove Gravdal has worked as a foreign affairs journalist for many years, with the USA as a specialism. Jan Arild Snoen recently published a book on the Trump era in America.

And Hans Høeg has spent a number of years as chief of staff in the House of Representatives. NRK veteran Tomm Kristiansen interviews this trio on where the world’s most powerful nation is headed.

Reasonable doubt Saturday 13 February 14.45–15.30 Ol av H Hauge 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

The courtroom is a place where right and wrong are determined and guilt allocated. As a sketch artist in this arena, Ane Hem takes a particularly hard look at its players and has become curious about the people she draws. In Et spørsmål om skyld, she describes human drama and pain, people who are judged and their subsequent lives. Even though the court confines itself to a guilty or not guilty verdict, the truth is often not so simple.

Hem meets literary researcher Line Norman Hjorth for a conversation about legal history, courtroom rhetoric and who tells the best stories.

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C ro s s- g e n e r at i o n c o n v e rsat i o n I V:

Faithful or free?

Views on translation have changed over the years. Roughly speaking, they have fluctuated between the extremes of “faithful” and “free”. The faithful translation lies closest to the original text, while the free is more tailored to the language and culture it is to function in.

No ideological paradigm shift has perhaps occurred over less than a generation, the time which separates the translation debuts of Toril Hansen and Preben Jordal in 1988 and 2007 respectively. But have the technical changes in society had any effect on the way translating is done today compared with 40 years ago? And how far do a translator’s ideals change over time? Hansen and Jordal discuss translation before and now with critic and translator Margunn Vikingstad.

Saturday 13 February 15.00–16.00 Alver Free norwegian

In collaboration with the Norwegian Association of Literary Translators (NO).

The most difficult surname in the community As a child, journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam was unaware that a local librarian practised spelling his surname so that he would not feel different. Nevertheless, he later came to experience the racism which many Norwegians deny exists.

In his memoir Vi puster fortsatt, he talks about his parents’ forbidden love, about moving to Norwegian snow, about growing up and about comradeship. He also describes despair and optimism after incidents like the murder of 15-year-old Benjamin Hermansen in 2001, the 22 July terrorist attack in Oslo and the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Shanmugaratnam meets author and editor Nazneen Khan-Østrem for a conversation.

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Saturday 13 February 15.45–16.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

Meeting with Nordic winners Saturday 13 February 17.00–18.00 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

LitFestBergen invites you to meet Finland’s Monika Fagerholm, winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize for 2020, as well as Finn Jenny Lucander and Swede Jens Mattsson, who jointly won the Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize.

Both winning works depict dark human experiences. The children’s book Vi är lajon! deals with serious illness, while Vem dödade bambi? takes group rape as its starting point.

How can such material be communicated to different generations of readers? What is the difference between writing for adults and children? And does a Nordic literary community exist? The conversation is moderated by Jan H Landro.

In collaboration with the secretariat for the Nordic Council literature prizes.

C ro s s- g e n e r at i o n c o n v e rsat i o n V:

Sami history lesson Saturday 13 February 18.15–19.00 Ol av H Hauge 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) Norwegian

Part of Norway’s history which attracts little attention is the way Sami children were forced to adopt Norwegian language, culture and mentality, and the deep scars that this left on the children, their families and society. Both Leve blant reptiler, the new poetry collection from Mary Ailonieida Sombán Mari, and Lappjævel, the young adult novel

by Kathrine Nedrejord, address this dark side of Norway’s past in different ways.

Sombán Mari and Nedrejord belong to different Sami generations. How do they find that this part of their people’s history is communicated today in Sami and Norwegian?

They meet Tomm Kristiansen for a conversation on growing up as a Sami and what has changed in relations between Sami and Norwegians.

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Norwegian, Swede, Dane – festival special They call it pan-Scandinavian family therapy. Culture journalist and author Åsa Linderborg in Sweden and Danish author and dramatist Hassan Preisler meet journalist and editor Hilde Sandvik from Norway in the weekly radio programme Norsken, svensken og dansken from the respective national broadcasters (NRK, DR and SR). They discuss events large and small which have caught the public eye over the previous week to create greater understanding of how similarly and differently these three nations experience society around them.

Bearing the festival theme of “Generations” in their baggage, the trio visit LitFestBergen and let the audience share in the therapy.

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Saturday 13 February 18.30–19.30 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Scandinavian

Racism’s heart Saturday 13 February 19.45–20.30 Ol av H Hauge 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) English

Many in the USA regard slavery and the Jim Crow laws – 250 years of brutal discrimination – as primarily African-American rather than white history. Does the rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM) reflect the failure to treat this story as a national trauma? Can BLM change the USA? And how do the issues it raises find expression in literature today?

One anti-racism activist who defends BLM is US young adult author Jason Reynolds. His million-selling books deal with the daily lives of young black Americans and depict police violence and killings. Reynolds writes rap-inspired books and wants to get boys to read and to provide black Americans with literary role models. Can literature change the USA? Reynolds talks with Nazneen Khan-Østrem about the toxicity of racism and why he believes BLM is important.

The oldest young boy in Bergen town Saturday 13 February 20.00–20.45 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) norwegian

When Sondre Lerche issued his first album as an 18-yearold in 2001, he was clearly inspired by older performers.

His book Alle sanger handler om deg, published in 2020, enthusiastically shares his insights into a broad range of musical expressions across the generations.

He talks with Pedro Carmona-Alvarez, an author and musician himself, who once described Lerche as the oldest young boy in Bergen town.

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Poetic punk gala Poetry spans every extreme of human existence, from ugly and angry, through muted and miserable, to joyous and jubilant. Seven poets and two musicians meet this evening in a lyrical world off the map. Topographer for the evening is translator and poetry-lover Eira Søyseth.

Participants include the poet whose debut attracted the greatest attention last year, Karoline Brændjord with Jeg vil våkne til verden. From Sápmi (Land of the Sami) comes Tromsø resident Mary Ailioneida Sombán Mary, topical with the collection Leve blant reptiler.

Others on stage are Lillehammer-based Fatemeh Ekhtesari, a selection of whose poems appeared in Norwegian translation in Vi overlever ikke during 2020, Pedro CarmonaAlvarez, Chilean Bergen resident and author of Inventarium, and Henning Bergsvåg, whose Dette er ikke et stille sted appeared in 2020.

Steinar Opstad and Øivind Hånes are involved in a project with poets from a number of countries, and will be presenting poems by imprisoned Kurdish poet Ilham Çomak.

Opstad will also read his own poetry. Musicians Sara Marielle Gaup and Hamid Sakhizada contribute yoik (traditional Sami singing) and Afghan music.

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Saturday 13 February 21.15–22.45 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) free (streaming) Norwegian/Persian/Sámi

Ask the author!

Saturday 13 February 21.30–22.30 Ol av H Hauge 180 / 80 (student) Norwegian

Many myths flourish about authors, and now you can help to expose them. We let Tore Renberg and Olaug Nilssen answer your questions about how they work, what they eat and drink and how they seek inspiration. Frode Helmich Pedersen leads this hunt for the truth about matters large and small, and invites the audience to participate in a detailed search for what it’s really like to be an author.

Send your questions to info@litfestbergen.no

N i g h t c h at:

Cecilie Løveid and Alf van der Hagen Saturday 13 February 23.00–24.00 Ol av H Hauge 180 / 80 (student) Norwegian

Night chats was a now-legendary series from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) during the 1990s, where Alf van der Hagen interviewed some of Norway’s most important contemporary authors.

LitFestBergen has revived the conversation and provided room during the final hour of the day for an in-depth chat on life and literature with Cecilie Løveid, who celebrates her 70th birthday next August.

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SUNDAY 14 FEBRUARY

UN security council and Norwegian pride After an intense lobbying process, Norway has secured a two-year term for the fifth time on the world’s most powerful decision-making body. When LitFestBergen 2021 gets under way, the country has just found its seat on the UN security council. What will it mean that we have won this place – other than the pleasure of basking in the lustre of power?

Polarisation between the permanent members – Russia, China, the USA, France and the UK – can make it difficult to pursue the job of securing world peace the council was created to do. What were Norway’s previous terms on the council like for it, and what will be the biggest challenges in 2021-22? Journalist Tove Gravdal, author of Til bords med de mektige, explains.

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Sunday 14 February 12.00–12.30 auditoriet 120 / 80 (student) Norwegian

The generation which blazed the trail Sunday 14 February 12.00–12.45 Ol av H Hauge 120 / 80 (student) free (steaming) Norwegian

With Ut av skyggene, Shazia Majid provides an important supplement to the history of Norwegian women by depicting the first generation of non-European female immigrants. Her mother came to Norway from Pakistan in 1973, two years after her husband. Drawing on this maternal story, supplemented by statistics and research, Majid's relates how non-western women have fared in their new homeland. She shows that their fight to secure equality for themselves and their daughters has many parallels with the battles waged by Norwegian women a few years earlier, and looks as far back as Camilla Collett’s struggle to be herself in 1859.

Ut av skyggene was nominated for the Brage prize in 2019. Majid is interviewed by social scientist Hilde Danielsen, whose works include Husmorhistorier.

PEN postcard campaign Sunday 14 February 13.00–15.00 Zinken Hopp Free English

Norwegian PEN and LitFestBergen invite participants to write a greeting to authors, journalists and bloggers worldwide who have been imprisoned or are being threatened and persecuted. The cards have been created by PEN members and authors seeking refuge in Norway through Icorn.

Opening times, postcard campaign Saturday 13.00-15.00 Sunday 13.00-15.00 In collaboration with Norwegian PEN.

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22 July a decade later Ten years have passed since the day in 2011 which all Norwegians remember. Most of us can recall where we were and what it was like to wake up the day after, learn the incomprehensibly high number of dead and injured, and not know how to continue.

In Stemmene etter 22. juli, professor Ingvild Folkvord has investigated the various linguistic responses to the terrorist atrocity, with voices as her starting point – poetic, broadcast, courtroom and non-fiction. Do these voices say something about the society which the perpetrator wanted to destroy? And how can our language grapple with what happened?

Sunday 14 February 13.00–13.30 Alver 120 / 80 (students) Norwegian

Around the world in 80 minutes Join a literary and culinary round-the-world tour. Like Phileas Fogg in Around the world in 80 days, we head east.

Accompany Gunnar M Sørbø to Khartoum, Ina Strøm to Tokyo, Hans Høeg to Washington DC and Chris Tvedt to Birmingham in the UK. Each visit is matched with a small dish prepared by Colonialen.

In cooperation with the Colonialen restaurant.

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Sunday 14 February 13.45–15.15 Zinken Hopp 380 (incl food) Norwegian

We share a sense of humour, anyway Sunday 14 February 14.15–15.15 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (students) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

Authors Gunnhild Øyehaug and Olaug Nilssen, both resident in Bergen, each made their literary debut in 1998 – with poetry collection Slaven av blåbæret and novel Innestengt i udyr respectively. Regarded by many as part of the same “west Norwegian, New Norwegian women” camp, they have known each other for half a lifetime and followed each other’s work closely. Their publications this autumn – Nilssen’s Yt etter evne, få etter behov and Øyehaug’s Vonde blomar – have confirmed their central places in Norway’s literary landscape. But what do they have in common, and what separates them?

How does an author develop? Is it the literature you read, changes to your life, your view of society or just “something that happens”? Nilssen and Øyehaug meet fellow author Eivind Riise Hauge for a conversation on what influences the literary path you choose to follow.

Grandchildren’s view of the Second World War Sunday 14 February 15.45–16.45 Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) 40 (streaming) Norwegian

Simon Stranger is author of the novel Leksikon om lys og mørke (Keep Saying Their Names), while Marte Michelet has written the non-fiction books Den største forbrytelsen and Hva visste hjemmefronten? They want to explain how Norwegians betrayed their Jewish compatriots in the Second World War. How can a true story like this be presented through a novel, and how do you investigate a subject few people want illuminated? Did two generations have to pass before Norway was ready for these stories from the war? Michelet og Stranger meet professor and Holocaust Centre director Guri Hjeltnes for a conversation about hero-worship, betrayal and evil.

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P ro s e lo u n g e :

Generational life mastery With books such as Den terapeutiske kultur, Generasjon prestasjon and, most recently, Livsmestring på timeplanen – rett medisin for elevene?, philosopher and psychologist Ole Jacob Madsen has participated for a number of years in the debate on the psychologising of society.

Does psychology individualise what is actually a structural problem, and does this help to diagnose people as ill instead of providing insights which can change society? Is mastering life the right medicine for schoolchildren, who are now to be taught this in every subject? And what is actually “generational performance”? Meet the author in conversation with Grethe Fatima Syéd.

In collaboration with the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association (NFFO).

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Sunday 14 February 16.15–17.00 Ol av H Hauge Free (Will also be streamed) Norwegian

C lo s i n g p e r fo r m a n c e :

I am Dog Sunday 14 February 17.15–18.15

The final session of the Bergen International Literary Festival 2021 is a premiere.

Auditoriet 180 / 80 (student) English

I am Dog is a performance in text, pictures, light and sound created by Alwynne Pritchard in collaboration with Domizia Tosatto. The story unfolds through a series of short interactions between a girl called Willa and her friend Dog, who together exist in a world of almost complete isolation.

Their exchanges, which are playful, funny, sometimes heroic and often cruel, can be read as a kind of internal monologue – two sides of the same personality – or simply as the antics of two young beings discovering life and the world together.

I am Dog is suitable for all ages.

Closing remarks: festival director Teresa Grøtan

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Andrei and Alessia Buchurest/Romania

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My Generation An essay competition On 11 June 2020, LitFestBergen announced the Bergen International Essay Competition. This was open to everybody under the age of 30.

The theme was “My generation” and we asked: What characterises your generation? Write an essay from your standpoint. What encourages you, what enrages you?

The essay could be written in any language, but a translation into English had to be provided with the original text. The contestants had to be born in 1990 or later.

By the deadline on 1 October 2020, we had received 550 essays from 90 countries.

We gave equal emphasis to literary quality and content. In the following pages, you can read about the young people who made it to the longlist, as well as the three on the shortlist, and their essays.

The winner will be announced on 10 February 2021. This person receives EUR 2 500, while the two runners-up each receive EUR 500.

The jury has been: Alisa Ganieva (Russia), author and critic Sandra Lillebø (Norway), author and critic Daniel Medin (USA/France), editor and associate professor at the American University of Paris Jonny Steinberg (South Africa/UK), author and professor at the University of Oxford Ece Temelkuran (Turkey), author and commentator

SHORTLIST essay competition "My Generation" ELIJAH KOOME Born: 1994 Nationality: Kenyan Essay title: Generation M “I want to capture the malaise which afflicts people of my generation in this place I call home. I reflect on our vulnerability in the face of the corrupt, powerful and older elite which has run the country for as long as it has existed.”

JULIA MATINĈIĈ Born: 1995 Nationality: Norwegian Essay title: Skin “Skin is about being a part of the pre­ cariat, and about how work often becomes the most important part of one’s identity. It’s also about what Karl Marx, Kim Kardashian and myself have in common: skin diseases.”

MALUMI ADEBOYE OLUWAFEMI Born: 2002 Nationality: Nigerian Essay title: My generation “My essay touches on the experiences and realities of youths in my environment. The experiences related are all true. Some are personal, some happened to others.”

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LONGLIST "MY GENERATION" LEEN ALARBAJI ALSAYEGH Born: 1995 Nationality: Syrian Essay title: The map of us “Our wishes are barging into war’s lethal body like soap balloons … This clingy war has been stalking us like our shadows, trying to bite off our hearts. Restless will I be, until violence melts in the arms of understanding, until love smashes preconceptions, until I witness the triumph of humanity.”

HALIA BAILLIE Born: 2001 Nationality: Scottish Essay title: Hope, despair and a pregnancy scare “My essay is about what it’s like coming of age in a tumultuous time and beginning to feel helpless under the weight of it all.

On top of this, trying to consider what type of world it would be to raise a child in and how I would face a teen pregnancy.”

DEC COCHRAN (DECLAN JAMES COCHRAN) Born: 1995 Nationality: English Essay title: Optics “My essay articulates the experiences of a person of my generation simply navigating their day. We live in an age of information saturation, where the various contradictions, loopholes and paradoxes which occur daily in our interior and exterior lives are simultaneously reinforced and criticised.”

MARIE MCMULLIN Born: 1996 Nationality: Swiss and British Essay title: When all looks bleak, keep going, for what else is there – the generation of dogged persistence “I have tried to express the weariness tempered by determination inherent in my generation’s world view. I do not claim to be a mouthpiece for everyone my age, but I do hope my personal perspective speaks to others.”

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LONGLIST "MY GENERATION" ENZO KOHARA FRANCA Born: 1990 Nationality: Brazilian Essay title: We contain multitudes “I explore the paradoxes which define us: our duty to protect individual rights while coming together as a group and our need to balance sustainability with development. We live in a radically uncertain world, but I argue that our generation is ready to tackle the challenges which face us.”

FATMA HASSAN Born: 2001 Nationality: Sudanese Essay title: It isn’t raining anymore “This is an essay about nostalgia, water, the strange sensation which comes with the self-awareness of growing up, and the horrifying apathy of humans. It’s about realising that nothing limits us except each other. It’s about me realising that nature cannot be evil, but that I sometimes wish it were.”

KERI HUI Born: 1992 Nationality: Hong Kong SAR Essay title: Visible rage and the invisible race “We cry out for justice both on the street and on social media.

Yet rage can easily turn even the one who recognises the injustice surrounding them into an agent who misuses power.

How then can we keep the invisible race for change running?”

ERIC JOOYOUNG KIM Born: 2001 Nationality: Korean and American Essay title: The voice of the youth “The world, currently plagued with a global pandemic, economic turbulence and political division, must listen to the cogent voice of the youth in order to institute stability, growth and societal inclusion.”

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LONGLIST "MY GENERATION" ELISAVETA MIRON Born: 2001 Nationality: Moldovan Essay title: Hanging midway “A generation with great aspirations and desires. A generation whose fate will be seen very soon. A generation which will try to make the world a better place. It is my generation – Generation Z, which is hanging midway, but will soar someday.”

SARVNAZ ALE MOHAMMAD Born: 2004 Nationality: Iranian-Canadian Essay title: My generation: hopes, dreams and fears “My essay attempts to make a cohesive case for a generation typically criticised as lazy and selfish. Ultimately, my essay argues that this is a generation which fights for radical change; for a revolution, not of violence, but of love and acceptance.”

ABHINITA MOHANTY Born: 1990 Nationality: Indian Essay title: My generation: problems and perspectives “Just like India, my generation is caught between two worlds and its contradictions. That is reflected in our diversities and eccentricities of caste and class. We are anything but homogenous.”

NIKOLAJ RAMSDAL NIELSEN Born: 1995 Nationality: Danish Essay title: The terrifying largeness of being “Mine is the generation which escapes through frivolous consumption, soft and hard drugs, a surrender to a grim future or none at all. But mine is also the generation of collective action against atrocities, of fighting through anxiety because we cannot afford not to try.”

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LONGLIST "MY GENERATION" MARIE HJØRNET NIELSEN Born: 1992 Nationality: Danish Essay title: Letter to my unborn child

“The presence of the unborn child intensifies the worries for the future. But it’s also about feeling stronger than ever before, the untiring work of the body in creating a human being, the feeling of survival in every single cell.”

UGOCHUKWU REGINALD OKEKE Born: 1997 Nationality: Nigerian Essay title: My generation: the myth of the next billionaire “I wrote this essay with the aim of inspiring a drastic rethinking of global capitalism amongst my peers. And also, to dissuade others from joining the harmful rat race it imposes on us.”

DANIEL SUJAY R Born: 1999 Nationality: Indian Essay title: Fire and water “This essay is the result of deep introspection about my life and observation of the world around me. It is reflective of the way my generation feels – overwhelmed, but not done fighting.”

TYRONE NKULULEKO TAKAWIRA Born: 1998 Nationality: Zimbabwean Essay title: Pieces “My generation is not one-dimensional. It is a multitude of culture, activism, art, music, technology and so forth. When these pieces are combined, they form a complete puzzle. A puzzle which expresses our humanity.”

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Generation M Written by Elijah Koome The place I call home is not a savannah bedecked with herds of gallivanting wildebeests. It is not a scorched desert where vipers slither with deadly fury.

The place I call home is cool and verdant.

It has chains of rolling hills, covered with fragrant flowering shrubs. It has trees that shoot skywards like rockets and dozens of meandering brooks. The place I call home affords one a magnificent view of small, gleaming, desert towns on the distant eastern horizon.

But that is not what I see as I walk home every evening. When I stumble upon a stubborn rock, I think to myself: Will I have to wait till Judgement Day before this road is tarmacked? To call it a road is an exaggeration. A muddy path is more appropriate. It has been a muddy path for as long as I can remember. And then there are the gullies which line the path.

If I’m not careful in my step, I could find myself kissing the rocks in the bottom.

In the rainy season, the risk of cracking my skull on the slippery path is always present, like the sun.

When I look around, I notice that every family owns a small patch of land, rarely exceeding two acres. In this land, I see settlements. I see small, square houses with corrugated iron roofs. The walls are made of old timber and mud. Two or three of these houses make a home.

Five or 10 or 20 people live in these houses. When I pass near the primary school, I notice several brick structures with missing window panes. When I stop to greet the teachers, I notice that the offices are old, tiny, unkempt. When I look at the hopeful faces of the children in their tattered blue uniforms, I think to myself: Do you know what awaits you, you poor little lambs?

My generation is afflicted by a malaise which runs deeper than the roots of the ficus tree. In the place I call home, people of my generation have little to do and few places to go. Schools, which are where young people go in other places, are almost ornamental here. When one is done with the innocent years of primary school, often with dismal grades, a new reality sets in: there is no money to pay for high school. Your parents, who are themselves barely literate, have no money for tuition and other expenses, and if they do, they have just enough to send you to the local secondary school.

This is a school where labs have no reagents, where teachers have minimal qualifications or none at all, where sala­ ries are paid intermittently. Should you go to this school, you may expect to sit with 60 or more students in a classroom, to have no textbooks for your homework, to walk several miles every morning just to get there. If you go to this school, you

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can be assured that your final grade will be in the vicinity of C or D or E, and with that, college and university will remain distant dreams.

One could work. But what line of work?

People of my generation own no land, so farming is out of the question. Our parents own all the patches of arable land, and there is nothing they care more for. Our parents decide what will be grown, how it will be grown, when it will be grown. If you are lucky, like my friend Christopher, your grandparents will give you a piece of land when you are still young, and that might give you some­ thing to do. But the vast majority of us are not lucky. Our parents own the land, we are mere guests on it. The closest thing to farming that you can do is be a farm hand. As a farm hand, you could help till the land and weed the plants. You could help tea farmers harvest the crop and shuttle it to the collection centre.

You could help qat farmers to harvest and sort and transport the stimulant to the small towns where it is packed and sent to Nairobi and Mombasa and Somalia.

Most young men of my generation choose to be farm hands for qat farmers. At the crack of dawn, they get up and meet in a small hotel at the shopping centre. They drink tea and eat two or three or four mandazi. Then they walk or drive to the farm. The mornings are dewy, and the qat trees are slippery. But these young

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men have become experts at clambering up slippery trees. At the farm, speed and precision wins. The smartest farm hands know the most bountiful qat trees at first glance, and they mark these before anyone else does. As the harvesting proceeds, stories are traded. Someone saw a ghost last night. Someone chased a witch from the back yard. Someone dream­ed a terrifying dream which came true.

In the afternoon, these young men spend their earnings, the equivalent of 10 or 20 dollars if you are lucky, at small lounges by the roadside. In their pockets, they carry a sizable bundle of qat, also known as miraa. Qat is a mild stimulant, and chewing it is a terrifically efficient way of killing time and keeping boredom at bay.

Chewing qat focuses your mind, it gives you something to do with your tongue and teeth all afternoon and all evening.

Qat absorbs your worries and sorrows and fatigues. Under the spell of qat, the world is pleasant and placid.

Young women of my generation rarely work as farm hands for qat farmers.

They rarely chew qat by the roadside in the afternoons. Instead of qat, they harvest tea and shuttle it to collection centres in straw baskets. They make the equivalent of two or three dollars a day. In the evening, they go back to their parents’ (or husbands’) homes and cook and clean and banter with their mothers.

On Sundays, they go to the church, then to the salon, where they get their hair braided and their nails pedicured.

Not everyone stays in the village. Many leave, like my brother John who left when I was 13. For many years, he travelled from one city to another, one country to another. He went first to Nairobi, then to Lodwar, then to Juba, then to Gulu.

Eight years later, he returned home, jaded and empty-handed. He had nothing but fantastic stories to share with us.

Leaving is not hard. For the young men who harvest qat at dawn and chew it at dusk, leaving involves getting into one of the Toyotas or buses which ferry the qat to the city. Once you get there, you stay with a cousin or a friend. Your task in the city will be to sell qat, but as you learn more about the environment there, you get the freedom to pursue whatever you want. Once you are in the city, you should plan to send money back home, even if you are living in the slums. When you come back to visit, you should come bearing gifts – food, clothes and assorted trinkets. Woe upon you if you don’t. Your family will be cold and the neighbours will say unkind things.

A few people make it to colleges and universities. These are often the ones who have a natural aptitude for acade­ mic study, or the ones who spend days and nights poring over their textbooks.

There is no college or university in the place I call home; the closest one is 25

miles away. When the few scholarly minds in my generation graduate from high school with As and Bs in their final exams, the village comes together and fundraises for their tuition. The villagers do this with a touch of scepticism. There is a popular saying about these scholars, one which my mother is fond of: “They will be blowing dust on our faces with their cars”. Still, this does not prevent people from giving their goats or chick­ ens or cows to the fundraising effort.

Jealousy is considered a close relative to witchcraft.

I left for university when I was 19. The university was in the city, six or seven hours away. There, I met more people like me, escapees from provincial villa­ ges. There was Stephen and Philomena, both raised outside Marsabit. There was Jacob, raised in Vanga. These others, who became my friends, were bookish and broke. In the city, we felt our lack of means more acutely than we had ever felt in the villages. Some of our classmates, not many, went to the cinema every Friday while we gathered around one laptop to watch Divergent and 3 Idiots. They went to KFC and Pizza Inn for lunch while we pinched every coin to afford rice and beans at the shacks behind the hostels.

The public university is a bog where idealism comes to die. Lecturers go on strike for months because of money, students stone motorists and burn hostels because of money, and grades are revised

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and modified because of money. Those who thought knowledge and intellectual provocation are the core tenets of a university quickly learn that money rules here – in fact, money seems the univer­ sity’s only raison d’etre. Those who are sharp-witted and cynical enough learn to flatter and keep company with the city politicians who reward them with meagre cash handouts.

There is another group, though. Small in number, members of this group persist in their idealism. They organise volun­ teer drives to the city’s slums. They act as mentors to high school students in the surrounding locations. They organise charity events and art events.

They go to the dean’s office and protest unfair academic policies. They organise protests against laws banning cooking in the hostels. They protest police brutality against civilians. This minority is looked upon with admiration, even by the rest of us who have given in to cynicism, and that is why when they are gunned down by government mercenaries, everyone is willing to risk being tear gassed and club­ bed for their sake.

Getting through university is difficult enough – my friend David has been chasing his bachelor’s degree for the past seven years, but getting a job afterwards is an extreme sport. My sister, who graduated three years ago with a degree in education, is yet to secure any kind of employment. Unless you know someone

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who knows someone who knows some­ one, your chances of landing a job are as rare as a winged camel. You may have all the qualifications you want, you may be Einstein if you wish, but no one will give you a job unless they know you, or you are a member of their family, or you are willing to part with a hefty bribe, or you are willing to sleep with them.

My generation is afflicted with malaise because we have few opportunities to really live. Brilliant artists, like my friend Daniel, have nowhere to hone their skills, no one to promote their art, no one to encourage their creativity. Incredible soccer players like my friend Jack will never get to live on their talent because there is no chance for them to do so here. The people who should be provi­ ding these opportunities are a voracious cabal who hoard and squander most of the nation’s wealth. Members of the gerontocracy which is in charge of our country do not give a toss for anyone beyond their relatives.

When I was child, I kept hearing this phrase: “You are the leaders of tomor­ row”. But today, I realise that tomorrow is still far away. My generation – that is, those who are aged between 15 and 35 – constitutes the largest demographic in the country and in the entire conti­ nent. But, despite having the numbers, this generation is the most vulnerable and disempowered, and this is why our defining characteristic is a pernicious, exhausting, and spirit-draining malaise.

Skin Written by Julia Matinčič

The job title is “VIP hostess”. In the application, you must attach one fulllength image, one close-up, and measu­ rements of the chest, waist and hips. The measuring tape feels cold against my skin when I drape it around my body and mark the centimetres. I’m 19 years old and on my way to becoming a journalist, but first I have to make money.

Every night is James Bond night at the cabaret club in London. The musical artists sing theme songs while we run between the tables and fill up the wine glasses. The tables in my section light up in a turquoise shade. The other sections are lit in purple, yellow and green. I got the job through a recruitment company.

My competence lay in my measurements.

We were given a half-hour course in table setting and etiquette before they consi­ dered us ready to get on with it. If I have to open a wine bottle at the table, I lose my confidence the moment the bottle opener is halfway down the cork. It’s as if the strength in my arms disappears when the guests look at me.

As VIP hostesses, we must wear short, black dresses. The heels on our shoes must be low enough for us to run around on the sticky floor for 12 hours, but high enough for us to look exclusive while doing so. Our hair must always be worn down. We’re five blondes and one brunette. The girl who sells the most drinks in one night gets a bonus of £100.

This one girl gets it night after night: she’s blonde, neat, with a caring smile and agile movements. I try to guess her hip measurements. After the shift is over, she’s asked to spend some time with the guests who’ve spent the most. The men circle around her, half polite and half vulturous, and I look from a distance as jealousy wells up in me: she won again.

II Read 85-60-85 centimetres. I’m 13 and have just learnt the ideal measurements for a model by heart. Life is a long road branching in two directions: to capitalise on the body or the brain. So I buy a pair of high-heeled shoes and start practising.

One leg in front of the other in the same

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staccato movement which I see the girls on America’s Next Top Model use. But my body changes, so quickly it’s like I can see it happening in the mirror I’m catwalk­ ing towards. The glands in my breasts become tender. Fat settles around the hips and thighs. Acne spreads across the forehead, down the cheekbones and along the neck, shoulders, back. I apply thick foundation on my face and upper body. The foundation makes my skin look like icing.

Sam Shuster, a professor emeritus of dermatology, asks if Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism was a direct consequence of a skin disease he suffered from. Marx struggled with hidradenitis suppurativa, a disease that gives you foul-smelling boils in sensitive areas such as the crotch and armpits. The glands become swollen, and pus leaks out of inflamed openings in the skin. The pain is throbbing, as if the outgrowths have their own pulse.

The disease got worse with age, and at times Marx was even unable to sit down.

It eroded his confidence, says Shuster, who diagnosed him a hundred years or so later by looking at his correspondence.

“The bourgeoisie will remember my boils until the day they die,” he wrote to Frie­ drich Engels in 1867. Shuster believes that this was where his theory of aliena­ tion came into being, among boils and self-loathing. That it was a skin disease with revolutionary consequences.

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Work is hard. First, my smile begins to cramp, then the rest of my body. My feet can’t cope with wearing high heels for hours on end. I hate working until three o’clock at night. I hate being in direct competition with my colleagues, but even more that I never win the bonus.

But the salary is good for London, and I need the money to pay the rent. A few weeks into my job, I wake up and look in the mirror, and my body is covered in a rash. It has formed in spots above the kneecaps, above the chest and along the collarbones, on the side of the neck.

I find it on my eyelids, along the scalp and behind my ears. I stroke my fingers over my new skin. The red spots are dry and rough, like the beginning of a shell.

III “So, tell us a bit about yourself.”

I’m 24 years old and my outfit is bright and professional. I’m wearing makeup, but not too much. For the job interview, I’ve memorised some nice new words.

I’m sitting in a large glass building in Oslo and I say that I’m “forward-leaning” and “solution-oriented” while I try to keep eye contact with the editors. I’ve worked full time for a couple of years, jumping from short-term contract to short-term contract. In job interviews, I say it gives me “a broad competence”, even though it actually means that there’s been no offer at the end of the vacancies.

The conversation culminates in sports metaphors: I tell them I’m a team player.

They say they want someone who thrives in a vibrant environment with colleagues with a strong competitive instinct. When they me ask how flexible I am, I want to pull my leg up to the ceiling like a balle­ rina. I say I’m a hungry journalist, and they give me my zero-hours contract.

My choice of work is as much about self-realisation as it’s about earning a living. This is workism: the belief that work is not only necessary for econo­ mic production, but also at the centre of our identity and the very purpose of life. In an essay in The Atlantic, journalist Derek Thompson says that any policy to promote human welfare must therefore always encourage more work. It’s also a symptom of a class divide: work, for the poor and middle class, has remained a necessity, while for the educated elite it has been embraced as an office-clad religion. There is a nirvana, a place where passion and paid work merge into a higher entity.

“Do what you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life.” Being hungry means working overtime without entering it into the payroll system. It means being the first one to speak up in meetings, and showing the middle managers that we’re still there when they go home for the day. My body measure­

ments are no longer a necessary part of my skill set, but I’m still in direct compe­ tition with everyone around me. I look at my colleagues and hope that I win this time. I sit down at my desk and find my hand lotion. The rash has been better lately. I only find the red spots behind the ears, on the elbows and the scalp. I apply the thick cream onto the dry skin on my elbows in calm, circular movements.

IV The editor waves me into an office where three of the four walls are made of glass.

It’s been six months since I started working and my temporary post is at its end. Now we’re two fish inside an aqua­ rium. The most important thing for a young journalist is to be fearless and say yes to everything. “Competition shar­ pens us all, you know,” she says.

I nod and try to avoid scratching my scalp. The rash has been at its worst lately. I tend to scratch it until it bleeds under the hairline and around the temples. In some places the puss has solidified into yellow crusts. There are large flakes of dandruff attached to some strands of hair. If I scratch it, it will fall onto my shoulders like snowflakes.

Towards the end of the conversation, she says that she can probably offer me a further call-up position for a few more

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months, but she can’t really promise anything after that. She begins a sentence before stopping herself.

“How old are you again?” she asks.

“24,” I say.

She laughs.

“Then a permanent job is the last thing you need to think about,” she says, and continues: “You have to appreciate the freedom and flexibility for as long as it lasts.”

“Psoriasis? I can’t have psoriasis.”

Her face scrunches up when the doctor says it can’t be cured, only be kept in check.

“My career is to do advertising cam­paigns, to be photographed in bathing suits. People don’t understand the pres­ sure to be perfect,” Kim says.

The doctor takes off his glasses and scratches his white beard, before telling her that the best thing for the disease is to live a calmer life.

“That’s not possible for me,” she answers.

I return to the open office landscape, but stay standing up. There are no avail­ able desks there. In recent months, we’ve tried a clean desk policy, where all the temps clean their desks at the end of the day. The next morning it’s first come, first served. But in recent months they’ve hired more journalists on zerohours contracts, so there are no longer enough desks for everyone. I sit down on the sofa in the common area and balance the laptop on my lap. I watched the 15th season of Keeping up with the Kardashians the night before, and the tab is still open.

In this episode, Kim Kardashian is at the dermatologist with a reddish rash on her leg. When he tells her that it’s psoriasis, she says:

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Later, Kim talks about how she keeps her psoriasis in check by injecting cortisone into her butt, and by having a diet based mainly on celery juice. I don’t treat my psoriasis in the hope that it will have revolutionary consequences. I sit on the couch at work and start digging my nails into my scalp, watching the dandruff fall into my lap. I feel the bloody crusts get stuck under my nails. The skin behind my ears can be torn off in large flakes.

I’m shedding my skin.

My Generation Written by Malumi Adeboye Oluwafemi I was born barefoot on a jagged rock in a black land with black men. I was born in Nigeria. That’s my country. Like the production of a film, each scene is influ­ enced by the actors and, ah yes, setting as well. My movie is not any different or unique in anyway. Except that to see the face of each actor, you would have to go behind the scenes, where we were un-­ furled and free, basking in the conscious­ ness of life and existence. I am no baby or child or boy or man. I’m just a little voice crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the coming ones. Make a straight pathway for them.” I’m just a big voice crying to the outlands. Telling of what we have seen, shouting our experience. I am only human.

When I and the boys were born, mother bought us no diapers or wipes like the other kids from tomorrow. We were settled with loincloths that would be removed when soiled, to be washed and worn again. We never slept in the rocking cot, or stood in the walking trainers. So we had to crawl on all fours till our feet were strong enough to bear us. And, yes, we would fall. Big heavy falls. And, yes, we would stand up with tears and we would walk again. That’s what hap­pened in that scene of my movie and more, which you would learn of from others

like me. That’s what happened when I was brought into this life.

When I and the boys were younger, we were bought no toys or action figures like the kids from yesterday. We had to settle for sticks and fingers, coming home each day with a bruise or two. Wailing out loud to mother, who would bathe and clean our wounds, and send us out to bring in some more again. We had no tasty food or snacks or sweets, so we would go to Mr Bello’s store and buy some with our snatch and speed. His leather belt would smile at us, and the welts on our backs would tell us that we did the right thing.

When the mobile phone came around, I mean within our reach, I and the boys would go to the home of the only boy who had one and we would sit around him, our eyes fixated on the wonder in his palm. He would press some buttons and we would see a little man in green fighting against another in blue. He would press some more buttons and we would witness the lady with the white skin take off her clothes, and walk around in her birthday suit. A man would come around, dressed in same attire, and they would do things together which would spread warm smiles on our faces. That’s what happened in that scene of my movie

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and more, which you would learn of from others like me. That’s what happened when I was still on younger street.

When I and the boys were older, we loved 'em female girls, the ones who would let us take off their dresses and do things when mother wasn’t home. We each had a girl, special to each of us, and things were really rough. Yesterday I cried over Maria as she called at night and told me she was no longer my girl; and how she let one of the other boys from tomorrow take off her dress. He gave her money she said. What have I ever given her? I bit on my lip as the tears flowed. Yes, I cried, and tomorrow, I will cry again over Marianne or Sophia.

I and the boys love the night. I think it’s because it reminds us of the colour of our hearts. Yesterday, Maestro died. He was felled with bullets by some of the other boys from yesterday. The streets are not too safe, especially for me and the boys.

His mother cried so much, deep tears of anguish and resentment. We didn’t cry for Maestro, but we may cry for Aluta or Robin or me when we fall tomorrow.

I and the boys met social media about a year ago. He introduced himself to us and he was all warm and smiling. But now he seems to bite us in the back with sharp teeth, the earlier friendliness seems all forgotten. He’s very scheming. Knows how to cause much havoc, especially amongst me and the boys. I enjoy him sometimes. Most times I would say. He

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even killed a girl last summer, when he showed everyone her pictures of her hidden regions. I never saw her after that.

We all never did.

I and the boys take some drinks. It keeps us happy, makes us feel better, and makes us forget all the worries and pains.

Fredrick would say, with some smoke in his lungs: “I like to get high, ‘cos I love the view from up here.” And we would all laugh, and drink some more.

Grades at school don’t matter to me and the boys. But it matters much to our parents. So we try to get some good ones, or at least okay ones. Fashion matters a lot: latest Snickers, coolest jeans and shirts. The girls love the guys who look good. So we try to keep up with the trend.

That’s what happened in that scene of my movie and more, which you would learn of from others like me. That’s what happened when I had hopped aboard the older ship.

When I and the boys are dead, we would pass just like the rest. We made no impact, struck no blow on our gene­ ration. That’s what some time behind some bars taught me, that’s what he told me through the silence and solitude. So now I change. The boys are gone now. It’s just me. Now I teach the little tots. Guide them right, lecture them about good.

Let’s see what their generation creates.

Mine is already fading fast, blowing away as dust in the wind.

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