“Everything else you grow out of,
but you never recover from childhood.”
— Beryl Bainbridge
A reddish O that opens and closes in amazement. A primordial hole that cries out but also emits smacking sounds of contentment and babbles. The red O makes AEIOU noises and overflows with unknown consonants. Suddenly: a word, then two, three, four. Sentences are followed by paragraphs, a lifetime long. And in between? The things left unsaid, swallowed words, the unspeakable and unsayable: a barren vastness of silence bursting with ambiguity.
The motto of this year’s TRADUKI programme at the Leipzig Book Fair, Between the Lines – In Between Times, is dedicated to the hidden aspects of life and the ambiguousness of our experiences. We want to look closer, observe closely, record things from up close. We want to examine turns in people’s life line, reinterpret childhood memories, and make room for the past in the future.
The TRADUKI team is putting together a programme to make these “in between” spaces more visible. Our full programme for the Leipzig Book Fair and Balkan Film Week will be published in March.