Je viens de loin, j’écris en français
Samuel Beckett

What do Guillaume Apollinaire and Atiq Rahimi, Jorge Semprún and Enki Bilal, Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett have in common? Born outside France, they all wrote in French during their career! It has been the case for centuries: French literature is enriched by the talents of those who choose ‘la langue de Molière’ to express themselves. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Samuel Beckett’s death and the 50th anniversary of his receiving the Nobel Prize, academic Dunlaith Bird and journalist Bernard Magnier retrace the course of Beckett’s life and how he came to write in French. They will explore his relationship with his language of both adoption and creation. To open the evening, Irish actress Clara Simpson will deliver a bilingual reading of Not I.

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Photo: John Minihan