Les mots troubles #3 / Writings
As part of the cycle "Les mots troubles" organized by Julie Béna, this third meeting is built around four guests who will discuss the role of translation and the encounter. The magazine How To Become will serve as a common thread in this exchange.
« In 2016, although I am based in Prague, I hear about The Cheapest University project, an experimental, free school. As part of this proposal, bilingual (English/French) workshops, called How To Become a Lesbian, are led by Sabrina Soyer around writing and translation. They focus on different temporalities that explore experimental narratives; different temporalities that are not exclusively in French (which is, in France, quite rare). They are different times that bring into conflict the formation of the subject and the matter of history (hello patriarchy); different times that invite one to rethink, to open up in order to transgress; different times in which poets and artist-writers who have never been translated, or very little, into French are read and translated. It seemed to be the most exciting thing in Paname and I am never there. I then bought the magazines and I discovered each time texts, authors, voices that I enjoyed. Barbara Sirieix, whom I have known for a long time, joined the project and sent me HOW TO BECOME A MOTHERFUCKINELEGIST in Prague. Finally Prague meets Paris.
I only met Sabrina once for a birthday party, but I always wanted to talk with her - not only about How To Become, but about the queer and feminist literature being made, the one I discovered thanks to her: Claire Finch or Elodie Petit, and the one I continued to love with her: Laetitia Paviani, Madison Bycroft or Joe Gustin. And finally, from the one we will hear in the third part of "mots troubles". Strong writings with words of our own, or words that we discover and learn to apprehend, not to make them our own, but to join them literarily, plastically, politically.
Earlier, I spoke of delight, as I could speak of reflection, of salivation, of desire. Because we are indeed questioning the body, languages and mouths, voices and hands. We are not far, we want to be together, to listen to them. But how does all this appear, how is all this made visible? How is it given to the eye, to the touch? How is all this written, thought? And finally, how does it all take shape by being published? It is about all these questions that we will discuss with four writers who will also read us their texts. »
Julie Béna
