Talk
Diplomacy through the eyes of creatives

A talk with Lucy Fricke

Wed, 19.04.2023
6:00 PM - 20:00 Goethe-Institut Hanoi

Registration to participate

“We didn't know panic, we were civil servants. The ones with the friendly lies. We were people who stepped outside in the pouring rain and raved about how good it was for agriculture. The beauty was that we knew about it and mostly just believed what we didn't say.” (The Diplomat)

"The Diplomat", the latest novel of Lucy Fricke, was a bestseller in Germany. In it, she tells in a humorous and merciless way the story of a diplomat, Fred, who loses faith in diplomacy. A German consul, who until then had known nothing but success, fails and is transferred to politically heated Istanbul, of all places. Between the Palace of Justice and the summer residence, the secret service and German-Turkish cooperation, between affairs and loneliness, she comes up against the limits of friendship, the rule of law and the European idea.

One special thing of Lucy’s books is that they were written based on her research and close contact with the context and people of the place. How was the information gathered? How are political aspects seen and realised in the work of a writing creative like Lucy Fricke? And what is unique about the way Lucy created the characters in her books?

Together with the DAAD Regional Office in Vietnam, the Goethe-Institut Hanoi presents the writer in a talk in Hanoi about Diplomacy through the eyes of creatives where interested public has a chance to meet up with Lucy Fricke for such an open discussion, moderated by the prestigious translator Lê Quang.

Lucy Fricke (*1974)

Lucy Fricke is a German writer. She had initially worked in the film and cinema industry before she studied literature at the Leipzig Literature Institute. She has done five novels and has received many awards for her work. Her fourth novel "Daughters" was a huge success and received the Bavarian Book Prize in 2018 and translated into eight languages and filmed for cinema.

Lê Quang (*1956)
After the war, Lê Quang received a gifted scholarship to study in the GDR. At the Bauhaus University in Weimar, he earned his degree in architecture. He then worked in Thuringia as a civil engineer. After reunification, he helped his compatriots gain a foothold in the reunited country through translations. His hobby became a profession. In 2001 he returned to Vietnam. Nowadays he is considered to be the best translator and interpreter for German language in Vietnam. Le Quang has translated many titles, including many beautiful children's books. From the well-known and representative authors of contemporary German literature, he has made the following authors accessible to the Vietnamese audience: Elfriede Jelinek, Milena Michiko Flasar, Julia Franck, Judith Herrmann (2), Bernhard Schlink (4x), Thomas Melle, Charlotte Roche , Ferdinand von Schirach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gottfried August Bürger alias Münchhausen, and the non-fiction authors Jochen Dieckmann, Richard David Precht, Egon Krenz, Norbert Häring.