Ida Hegazi and David Machado

Ida Hegazi and David Machado

You’re invited to Drama Kavarna on Saturday, 28 November at 17.00 to see authors Ida Hegazi from Norway and David Machado from Portugal. Magic will be provided by Magic Wladimir.

Ida Hegazi (a Norwegian of Egyptian-Danish descent) and David Machado (from Portugal), each of them a winner of this year’s European Prize for Literature, have something in common: lost illusions. Ida Hegazi’s novel Unnskyld (Forgive Me) relates the disappointment of a woman who, after starting to live with her partner, finds herself in a vortex of lies and deception. Machado’s Indice Medio de Felicidade (Average Happiness Index), meanwhile, depicts the fate of a man whose life has been ruined by economic crisis. Having lost his house and family, he is forced to live out of his car. Each author critically engages with the false reality of modern Europe, of a Europe in which there are still people who are societal outcasts, people living lives without hope. The discussion will be dedicated to these writers’ views on such current topics as the all too slow resolution of the refugee crisis and the stifling atmosphere caused by reawakened European nationalism.

The pyres of lost illusions are generating new ones, and the writers will be joined at this literary event by the enchanter and magician Magic Wladimir.

Dr. Igor Divjak will lead the discussion.

Photo: Mar Babo

Photo: Paal Audestad

Photo: Matevž Kostanjšek

Financial support for this Slovene Writers’ Association event is provided by the Slovenian Book Agency and by Literature Across Frontiers, a European platform for literary exchange.