Lesung und Begegnung mit Marie-Hélène Lafon: Die Quellen / Les sources

A remote farm in Auvergne, where cows graze and produce milk for the famous Saint-Nectaire cheese. "You're at the end of the world here. Nobody comes by except the letter carrier, the cattle dealer or the vet." Laundry hangs outside, the three children climb trees, and the young woman - she gets beaten up by her husband.
Always on Saturdays. For nine years. She can't tell anyone, even though she can barely stand her life and the children can feel the anxiety. The farm she bought with her husband after their wedding has become a prison. She knows that her entire existence is at stake in the event of a divorce.
Based on just a few days, stretching from 1967 to the present day, the novel tells the story of a woman who suffers for a long time and suddenly rebels, and of a farmer who only cares about the farm.
The physical and emotional hardships of life in this agricultural region become tangible, where a family breaks apart - and yet a miracle happens. The miracle of having escaped this raw, emotionless world and now living as a writer in Paris.

"The sources bid farewell to the house of childhood without nostalgia, like a shutter that you close for the last time." L'Humanité, Paris

Marie-Hélène Lafon
Marie-Hélène Lafon, born in 1962, now lives in Paris. Most of her fifteen or so books, which have been translated many times, are set in the Cantal in Auvergne, where Lafon grew up. She is one of the most distinctive literary voices in contemporary France. She was awarded the Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle in 2016 and the Prix Renaudot in 2020. The Annonce, Story of the Son and Joseph are available in German, all translated by Andrea Spingler. The Sources is Lafon's latest novel and has sold over 50,000 copies in the original.

Translated by Andrea Spingler

Reading in German and French
Moderation: apl. Prof. Dr. Vera Elisabeth Gerling, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

In cooperation with the Heine-Haus Literaturhaus Düsseldorf

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