A Question of Engagement
Monday, March 30, 2009
4:00 PM, Hesburgh Center for International Studies Auditorium
In its splendor and diversity, Mauritius is at the heart of the work by Ananda Devi. An ethnologist by training as well as a doctor of social anthropology and a translator, Ananda Devi is sensitive to the overlap of identities and languages. She keenly perceives the human characters and universes that can brush up against one another, clash with one another, and destroy one another. Her themes are stark and unflinching, her characters hemmed in by the forces of society, religion, prejudice, human cruelty and the fault-lines of history.
Ananda Devi’s works are published by Gallimard. She has received several literary awards, in particular for her 2006 novel Eve de ses Décombres, which won the Award of the Five Continents of La Francophonie and the RFO Prize.
Books by Ananda Devi have been translated into several languages. Perfectly trilingual in French, English, and Creole, she did her own English translation for her novel Pagli. Her most recent novel, Indian Tango, takes place in New Delhi.
Ananda Devi’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Délégation générale de l’Alliance Française aux États-Unis with the support of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, the Program in French and Francophone Studies, the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Henkels Interdisciplinary Visiting Speaker Series, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, the College of Arts and Letters Learning beyond the Classroom Initiative, the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and the Ph.D. in Literature Program.