Arnon Grunberg
Words Without Borders

The European Festival of the Short Story: Part One

At present I'm in Zagreb, Croatia, for the European Festival of the Short Story.
Now this might sound slightly awkward. When are we going to witness the Australian Festival of the Political Essay? Or the Tasmanian Festival of the Erotic Poem? But as far as festivals go, this seems to be a rather pleasant one. Today is day two for me of the festival, and in a few hours, we will go in a bus to the coast.
With fourteen authors, driving on a bus to the coast is tricky, so my judgment might change.
The hardest and most important thing about festivals is remembering the names of your colleagues, and to prevent giving them the impression that this is the first time you've heard about them and their work.
Maike Wetzel (Germany), Vetaliano Trevisan (Italy), Milko Valent (Croatia), and after that, I’m more or less of a blank. But I assume that they look me up in the catalogue with this same blankness, see my picture, Arnon Grunberg (Netherlands), and think, "Okay, that’s the guy with the ominous spectacles."
As with every festival, or any literary event, there are the usual traps: readings that go on forever, discussions about the nothingness of being, which end up being nothingness themselves.
And there are very pleasant surprises: hearing Anne Enright (Ireland) read a story about falling in love with dead men.
Afterwards, she explained that she started reading “to find out how people have sex.” Even Ulysses, she explained, was used as a sex manual once upon a time in Ireland.
I’m all in favor of using literature for these reasons. After all, life itself is just a slimy footnote to literature.
And I had a pleasant lunch with the Israeli author Etgar Keret. (For the Dutch edition of the book, which he published together with the Palestinian author Samir el-Youssef, I wrote the preface.)
Keret came up with a good idea to support the ongoing international fight against loneliness.
Men, women and childeren should be available for rent in order to bring travelers to the aiport, weep a little bit, and then whisper “Bye-bye, Daddy.” Or, “Don’t leave me alone, Mama.” God and pornography have, more often than not, let us down in the fight against loneliness, but a family for rent that escorts you to the airport might be the solution.
And the good thing about it: as soon as you board the plane, the family goes up in smoke.
Family-light, family without the responsibilities. Call it a pre-emptive strike.


200520062007200820092010

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneJulyAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember

31017242831