Yala Kisukidi
About Wonder : Literature as a Diaspora
February 9, 2023, 7 p.m.
Reid Hall | 4, rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris
Free and open to the public

 

In this lecture, Nadia Yala Kisukidi conceives of literature through a spatial understanding of “diaspora” at the crossroads between two territories : France and the DRC. In Yala’s writings, a certain idea of the Congo runs through and recomposes the French lived experience. Landscapes and borders come together in private lives and create new spaces for the imagination, where diaspora isn’t necessarily about origin or cultures and countries tearing each other apart, but rather gives way to a reflection on the notion of wonderment.

This talk will begin by a reading of Yala’s novel, La Dissociation (Paris, Seuil, 2022), an excerpt translated for this occasion by Yasmine Seale.

 

Fellowship 2002-2023
Institute of Ideas and Imagination
Columbia University Paris