4 November 2010 Hatzfeld’s “The Line of Submergence”
Today, in the Library of “Gazeta Wyborcza” the Jean Hatzfeld novel “The Line of Submergence” was published especially on the occasion of the Conrad Festival. Hatzfeld will be a guest of this year’s festival. Next year, the publishing house Wydawnictwo “Czarne” will publish “Life Laid Bare” and “A Time for Machetes” – his earlier Rwandan reports. The novel “The Line of Submergence” was written while working on the mentioned trilogy and constitutes its interesting completion. Hatzfeld was a participant at yesterday’s meeting titled “Geography of violence” together with Sven Lindqvist. On Thursday at 1 p.m. – the first laureate of the Ryszard Kapuściński Award will meet with readers at the Krakow Book Fair (ul. Centralna 41a, Agora stand P5), and at 6.30 p.m. his author evening at Klub pod Jaszczurami will take place (Main Market 8).
“The Line of Submergence” by Jean Hatzfeld, one of the most outstanding reporters and the first laureate of the Ryszard Kapuściński Award for “The Antelope Strategy” (Wydawnictwo “Czarne”, 2009), is a story about the problems of war correspondents. Joanna Bator wrote about the book in “Gazeta Wyborcza”: “It’s an essay-like, intellectual, as well as personal prose about love, war and loss. Its hero is Frédéric, the author’s alter ego. He is a reporter, who lives torn between there – the reality of war and suffering in Chechnya – and here – Paris, where there is good food and music, as well as Emese, the woman whom Frédéric loves. Similarly like in “The Antelope Strategy” the narration serves more in asking questions than providing answers. How to write about war? How to return from there and live here? These worlds radically differ from one another, however, they constitute a certain whole, which can only seemingly be easily separated”. The novel was translated by Jacek Giszczak, awarded for the translation of “The Antelope Strategy”. The book includes an introduction by Olga Stanisławska and an afterword by Małgorzata Szejnert.
We encourage you to read “The Line of Submergence” and to participate in following events with the participation of the French reporter.
