Literary Switzerland on your doorstep
Written by: Clare O’Dea
Did you know that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie appeared at the Literaturfestival Zürich this summer? And that David Nichols, author of One Day, had an event at the Société de Lecture in Geneva in May? Colson Whitehead will be at BuchBasel festival in November and Andrew O’Hagan is coming to Gstaad for a World of Words event next January.
There is a rich literary scene to be experienced in Switzerland if you know where to look. Some of the finest writers in the English-speaking world turn up in Swiss venues every year without much fanfare. With a little planning, you can tap into the top-notch programming offered by centres of literature, festivals, writers’ groups and bookshops.
Starting in the west, Geneva’s Société de Lecture has an impressive record for inviting renowned authors. Located in the Old Town and home to a historically-important library, the Société offers reasonable rates for students.
Geneva is also the location of the long-running and very active Geneva Writers Group that holds workshops throughout the year, including sessions for young people.
Sixty kilometres away, the Jan Michalski Foundation is a beautiful, purpose-built literary venue in Montricher, Vaud with a library, writers’ residence, auditorium and exhibition hall. It welcomes international writers for bilingual French-English events every spring for the Bibliotopia Festival.
Down on the lakeshore, Morges is the setting for the annual Le Livre sur les quais literary festival that takes place on the first weekend of September. It’s a huge gathering of French-language authors but there is always a well-curated English programme and the events are free. This year Natasha Brown and Allan Hollinghurst were among the invited authors.
The independent English bookstore Books Books Books in Lausanne has moved to a charming new location in rue du Valentin. They also hold events and have been known to serve scones from time to time.
The larger Swiss bookshops and chains like Payot and Orell Füssli all have good English sections and some host book clubs and events. Stauffacher English Bookshop in Bern is an example of a welcoming space that has created a community around books.
Unsurprisingly, Zurich is a heavy hitter on the literary circuit. The Literaturhaus Zürich invites English-language authors on a regular basis, most notably during the Zurich Literature Festival which takes place next year from July 6-12. This year, international authors who spoke at the venue included Booker-winner Paul Lynch and the legendary Colum McCann.
One of the city’s most famous former literary residents is James Joyce, and the Zurich James Joyce Foundation keeps the Irish writer’s legacy flourishing. Among the foundation’s offerings are weekly reading groups, intended as “a thorough but leisurely and relaxed ramble through works by James Joyce, step by step, with comments and discussion”.
For anyone teaching English literature, guest authors for festivals tend to be announced a bit too late to allow time for students to read the relevant work in advance. But an author event can also be worthwhile with an introduction beforehand and the reading done afterwards.
Apart from James Joyce, other legendary writers who spent time in Switzerland include Mary Shelley, Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Patricia Highsmith and John Le Carré. If you only read writers who once lived in the alpine country, it would be a well-rounded reading list.
In more recent years, writers like Donna Leon, Susan Jane Gilman, Kim Hays and Alison Langley have published novels while living in Switzerland, proving that Swiss inspiration is still going strong.
But most writers in Switzerland are naturally writing in the Swiss national languages. Fortunately, a lot of the work appears in English translation making it accessible to a wider readership. Reading homegrown talent is an excellent way to get to know any culture. As Colum McCann said, “the best writers attempt to become alternative historians.”
Learn more about her and her works at https://clareodea.com/
