The Zurich James Joyce Foundation is proud to host the event “Authentic Expression: Literature and the Struggle for Freedom” with Sahar Tavakoli.
As a publisher, translator and poet in Iran, Sahar Tavakoli experienced directly the pressures and limitations of producing literature under an authoritarian regime. Living in exile in Switzerland since 2023, she has also seen her own writing change significantly as her language finds new spaces of expression.
Like James Joyce himself, who lived as an exiled authors for a great part of his life, Sahar Tavakoli brings a unique insight into what it means to produce literature under different constraints and in radically different environments. The discussion with Tavakoli will illuminate several aspects of literature and the struggle for freedom, whether as publisher (dealing with the question of censorship in Iran), as a translator (Tavakoli translated the novel The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien into Persian) or as a poet in exile (discovering what happens to language and even to the body when the limits to freedom shift).
Against the backdrop of the current resistance movements in Iran, this evening will probe the challenges that come with the search for authentic expression in literature under authoritarianism and in exile.
Moderated by Ana Sobral (Weiter Schreiben Schweiz).
The event takes place on Friday, March 6, 6.30 p.m. at the Zurich James Joyce Foundation, Augustinergasse 9, 8001 Zurich (in English).
In collaboration with UZH Alumni und Zentrum für literarische Gegenwart.