Exploring Stories is the big festival day of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), featuring more than 30 international writers and thinkers on the current and urgent themes of our time. Exploring Stories shows that literature belongs at the heart of social debate. After all, literature begins where the news ends. Anyone who wants to understand the world better cannot do without the imagination of writers who, with their novels and stories, penetrate, complement, correct or turn our world view completely upside down.
This year, fiction writers and poets will engage with journalists, philosophers and scientists on topics such as climate, inequality, old and new colonialism, feminism and the war in Ukraine. Guests include British dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, Tash Aw (Malaysia/UK), Doireann Ní Ghríofa (Ireland), Andri Snær Magnason (Iceland), Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (Israel), Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine), Sharon Dodua Otoo (Germany/UK) and Olivia Laing (UK).
Amsterdam alderwoman Marjolein Moorman, who made a deep impression last year in the documentary series Klassen, discusses inequality of opportunity in education with poet Ruth Lasters, who resigned as Antwerp's city poet earlier this month after dissatisfaction with a poem she wrote with vocational school students.
Date: Sat. 1 October 2022
Time: 13:00 - 19:00
Location: TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht
Price: €25 / €17.50 (ILFU members, CJP, Youth (<25 yrs), U-pas)
Language: Dutch, English
Tickets: via www.ilfu.com
All themes & writers
Fixthis: fix sexism in literature,
25 September sees the publication of Optimistic rage: fix sexism in literature, the manifesto of writers' collective Fixdit. Eleven women writers join forces to improve the position of women in literature. A conversation with Fixdit members Manon Uphoff, Shantie Singh and Fleur Speet.
Unlocked voices: giving words to colonial history
Sharon Dodua Otoo and Dalilla Hermans are both authors who denounce racism in their work; Dodua Otoo in her novel Ada's place and Hermans in her columns and plays. They will discuss this with each other.
Some immigrants are more equal than others: immigration and class
Tash Aw is interviewed about his novel We, the Survivors, in which he explores the impact of being an immigrant on the value of a human life. He discusses it with Sulaiman Addonia and Sinan Çankaya.
Manifestation of the female text: new definitions of authorship
European Literature Prize nominee Doireann Ní Ghríofa, together with Ester Naomi Perquin, explores the tension between authorship and motherhood.
Where the wolf lurks: have to fight for a home (land)
Israeli Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and Inge Schilperoord discuss what it is like not to feel at home in the place where you live.
The liberation of the body: an enquiry into freedom
Writer and cultural critic Olivia Laing, author of Everyone a Body: on Resistance, Desire and Freedom, will explore what it means to have a body with Marian Donner, author of the Self-Destroying Book, and explore the scope of possibilities for liberating the body.
Female myths unravelled: retellings as feminist weapon
Madeline Miller (present online) and Natalie Haynes discuss how their retellings of ancient myths can debunk traditional views of women's roles in the world.
Ukraine's hidden history
The current war in Ukraine has a long history, which writers Oksana Zabuzhko and Sasha Marianna Salzmann scrutinise with painful and personal precision in their work. They are interviewed by Franka Hummels.
Opportunity inequality in education
PvdA politician and Amsterdam alderman Marjolein Moorman, also known for the documentary series Klassen, will discuss inequality of opportunity in education with poet Ruth Lasters, who recently stepped down as Antwerp's city poet because of a poem about education, and Anoushka Nzume, author of Hello White People.
Climate change
Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason, known among others for About Time and Water, will discuss the relationship between storytelling and climate change with Ellen de Bruin. The conversation will take place under the moderation of Jaap Tielbeke.
The revelation: the unmasking of America
A.M. Homes (present online) talks to Niña Weijers about the consequences of ruthless power politics that cross corpses and countries.
Closing out Exploring Stories is British dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson with a performance and interview.
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
