Launch of Inalco's first writing residency with Franco-Bulgarian writer Elitza Gueorguieva
From January 29 to June 15, 2024, Elitza Gueorguieva will lead writing workshops for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a series of meetings open to all audiences with translingual or heterolingual women writers from various cultural backgrounds.
Opening up new avenues at Inalco
Of Inalco's 8,000 students, 2,000 are of foreign origin. While our students are constantly confronted with knowledge, written and oral sources, they have very little opportunity to encounter living creation. This writing residency project was born out of an observation: the need to confront students with writing practices that are not academic, that take them off the beaten track of their curricula and allow them to test their own creativity.
Working on questions of identity and plurilingualism
The Ile-de-France residency is thus a unique opportunity for them to meet a writer and a piece of writing over the long term (one semester). We have chosen an author whose work, in addition to its literary quality, is in line with Inalco's cultural openness and resonates with its themes: a work that enables us to work on questions linked to identity and plurilingualism, sensitive issues for many students.
In addition to two writing workshops for Bachelor's and Master's students, we'll be working with her on a series of encounters open to all audiences with translingual women writers - who, like her, arrived late in France, and whose work bears witness to this adaptation.
The author: Elitza Gueorguieva
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Elitza Gueorguieva has lived and worked in France since 2000, where she devotes herself to film, writing and performance projects.
She has published a novel entitled Les cosmonautes ne font que passer with Verticales Editions in 2016, Prix André Dubreuil for the first novel from the Société des gens de lettres, several texts (in AOC, Le magazine littéraire, Les carnets de l'IMEC, etc.) and a long short story in Le livre des places with Inculte Editions. Her second novel Odyssée des filles de l'Est, is published by Verticales in January 2024.
She has made several documentary films, including Each wall is a door, awarded at Cinéma du réel 2017 and Our silent place shown at the Visions du réel festival in 2021, awarded by the Sofia International Film Festival and the Union of Bulgarian Filmmakers. She creates performances for various scenic venues such as the Actoral festival in Marseille, Hors Pistes, Hors-Limites and Extra! at the Centre Pompidou.
She is also patron of the 2024 edition of the Inalco Plurilingual Short Story Competition on the theme "Animal Languages".
See on YouTube - Interview with Elitza Gueorguieva:
Deconstructing prejudices about "girls from the East" with devastating humor (France Inter, 17/01/2024, 7 mn 59)
Project progress
The residency will run for the duration of the second university semester, from January 29 to June 15, 2023. There will be one to two interventions per week of classes (workshops and meetings).
- Workshop 1: a two-hour writing workshop per week over the first 6 weeks, aimed at Master's students, in particular from the Literary Translation Master's program. Its aim will be to show students that language can be "unbridled", made creative, moving away from academic language and a certain standardized French. It will thus bring an essential inflection to the professional training of future literary translators, teachers or mediators.
- Workshop 2: a two-hour writing workshop per week over the following 6 weeks, for Licence and DU Passerelle students (Refugee students). Its purpose will be to enable students to apprehend the question(s) of identity through the practice of creative writing, working on narrative.
- A replay of the workshops in June 2024
- A series of 5 meetings open to all audiences: approximately one meeting per month, organized in partnership with the three research teams (PLIDAM, CERLOM, CREE) teachers involved in the project, and in collaboration with UMR THALIM (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle). The meetings will focus on the issue of plurilingualism. Elitza Gueorguieva will invite other translingual or heterolingual women writers from different cultural areas to discuss the same issues as her.
Meetings program
Thursday February 15 at 5:30pm, Inalco
Ecrire translingue. Meeting with Elitza Gueorguieva, moderated by Marielle Anselmo
Thursday, March 14 at 6:30 pm, Inalco
Nos corps lumineux. Screening of the film Notre endroit silencieux and debate between Elitza Gueorguieva and Aliona Gloukhova, moderated by Marielle Anselmo (PLIDAM)
Tuesday, April 2 at 6:30pm, Inalco
Tout le monde n’a pas la chance d’aimer la carpe farcie. Debate between Elitza Gueorguieva and Elise Goldberg, moderated by Marielle Anselmo (PLIDAM)
Thursday, May 2, 2023 at 6:00 PM, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle
Désorientale. Debate between Elitza Gueorguieva and Negar Djavadi, moderated by Aline Marchand (THALIM)
Tuesday, May 14 at 7:00 PM, Librairie des femmes
Tupamadre - Debate between Elitza Gueorguieva and L. Etchart, moderated by Marielle Anselmo (PLIDAM)
Wednesday, June 19 at 5:00 pm, Maison de la Poésie
Débrider la langue - Restitution de l'atelier d'écriture d'Elitza Gueorguieva à l'Inalco
Partnerships
For the meetings: the UMR THALIM (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 12e) and Librairie des Femmes (Paris 7e)
