Readings & conversations
Borderless Mountains

Norbert Gstrein at IFOA: Alpine Literature meets the Rockies

Sun, 10/22/2017 -
Thu, 10/26/2017
Toronto Harbourfront Studio Theatre

Presented by the Goethe-Institut, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and Toronto's International Festival of Authors

How does a chosen literary setting affect story, characters, voice? European and North American authors read from their “mountain” works and discuss how region and home define their writing. The Goethe-Institut & Banff Centre invite award-winning German-language author for his Canadian debut to read from his works in translation and discuss with local colleagues what mountain culture means to them.

Program:

Tuesday, 24 October, 6:00 pm "Around the World"
Readings by Norbert Gstrein, Mireia Calafell, Nicola Lagioia, David Machado, Maja Vidmar, David Coventry, Hideo Furukawa, Rohan Wilson
hosted by Canadian author Brian Francis

Thursday, 26 October, 6:00 pm: "Borderless Mountains: The Alps Meet the Rockies"
Discussion with Norbert Gstrein
moderated by Toronto Star Books Editor Deborah Dundas

Events will be followed by signings.

Norbert Gstrein was born in 1961 in the Tyrolean Alps and studied mathematics in Innsbruck and at Stanford. At the 1989 Ingeborg Bachmann Festival, he won the Kärnten Prize for his work “The Jungle. A Prologue”. He is the author of several highly acclaimed novels, among them “The English Years” (1999), which won widespread critical acclaim in Germany and was awarded the coveted Alfred Döblin Prize. W.G. Sebald described it as “an exceptional work of prose fiction”. Other works include “A Sense of the Beginning” (2013). He is currently finishing his latest book, which begins and ends with Canada, out January 2018, from which he will read on his Canadian tour. With his novels, Norbert Gstrein has established himself as "one of the foremost raconteurs not only in the German-speaking world, but European literature as a whole" (FAZ). He lives with his family in Hamburg, Germany.

Curated by Jutta Brendemühl & Devyani Saltzmann