British author Adam Thirlwell will visit Brno this Wednesday to share his thoughts on society, literature, and Brno’s local legend Milan Kundera.
Thirlwell, a decorated academic and contributor to contemporary culture, will dig into the identity of a writer in his talk, entitled: “Confessions of an Insecure European”.
The event will take place in the ground floor Conference Hall of the Moravian Regional Library (MZK) at Kounicova 65a. The event is free, and will start at 7 pm.
“Against the backdrop of recent events such as Brexit, the war in Ukraine, the Trump era and the situation in Gaza, there are questions of identity, literary freedom, and the boundaries of genre,” said representatives of MZK and the Milan Kundera Library. “Does the novel still have the power to transcend national boundaries? Can the modern prose writer maintain the identity of a European novelist in today’s turbulent world? And if so, what kind of Europe do they actually narrate?”
To a great extent, these were the themes that Kundera explored through his own works.
Thirlwell, who is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has a long list of awards, including twice being named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, and in 2015 receiving the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
His debut, ‘Politics’, was published in 2003. It is a novel very much in the style of Kundera, with a meta-author/narrator voice that details the minute machinations of the characters as they work through individual relationships — physical, mental, emotional — en route to a ménage à trois.
In addition to many other interesting projects, Thirlwell has written three further novels. ‘The Escape’ (2009) was described by Kundera as “a novel where the humour is melancholic, the melancholy mischievous, and the talent startling”. This was followed by ‘Lurid & Cute’ (2015) and ‘The Future Future’ (2023).
MZK is best accessed via tram; the closest stops are Rybkova (3/10) or Nerudova (12).
