Encounter with the author of “Crossing the sea – with Syrians on the Exodus to Europe”
The Mediterranean has now become one of the deadliest borders of history. To bear witness to this reality, German reporter Wolfgang Bauer, from the
Die ZEIT weekly newspaper, secretly joined a group of Syrian refugees attempting to reach northern Europe. He suffered the anxiety of waiting, the cruelty of the smugglers and the brutality of the border guards; he saw the proximity of death, and a horizon that constantly shifts for some... while it seems so naturally gained for others.
Festival-goers are invited to meet this reporter, who has taken this experience and turned it into a powerful story, ending in a plea for a more humanitarian migration policy. The hard-hitting story of his journey is told in Crossing the sea, « a dry book, without pathos, and terribly moving », published by And Other Stories editor.
Moderation by Agnès Gruda, writer and journalist for La Presse.
This lecture is part of the global discussion/debate series « Kritikmaschine ». Organisers are the Goethe-Institut and Kursbuch, one of Germany’s leading intellectual magazines. Speakers include journalist Meredith Haaf on the new feminism, architect Friedrich von Borries on political design, historian Sabine Donauer on work in digital society, and Kursbuch editor Armin Nassehi on social criticism. Intellectuals from the respective guest countries will respond to the lectures. The event series seeks to confront mutually “otherised” perspectives with each other; it aims to search for new answer – and new questions.
In collaboration with the Festival international de la littérature and Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
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