Ten New Voices from Europe

Llŷr Gwyn Lewis from Wales, UK, is one of Ten New Voices selected for special promotion in 2017-18 by the Literary Europe Live project and Literature Across Frontiers.

Ten emerging writers from Europe have been selected for special promotion during 2017-18.

The names of the Ten New Voices from Europe were announced at the 2017 London Book Fair as part of an innovative project called Literary Europe Live (LEuL), which is led by Literature Across Frontiers (LAF).

Based in the Mercator Institute at Aberystwyth University, LEuL brings together a range of literary partners from 15 different countries of the EU.

The Ten New Voices for 2017 include novelists, poets, playwrights and translators from Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, France, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Spain and Wales.  

Now in its second year, the New Voices project has given a global platform to interesting writers who were little known outside their own countries.

Director of LAF, Alexandra Büchler said: “We selected our first ten New Voices in April 2016 and over the past year, they have had the opportunity to present their work at a range of literary festivals across Europe and beyond. Their work has been translated into a number of languages and some of them have now secured contracts for book translations.

“These writers have certainly become better known on the international literary scene and have benefited from these encounters creatively and professionally. We now look forward to working with our new selection of writers and taking their work to a wider audience.”

Following the announcement at the London Book Fair, the ten New Voices 2017 will meet at the Kosmopolis literary festival held at the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture on 22-26 March 2017.

During their visit, they will give public readings as part of the festival programme, meet local publishers, agents and literary event organisers, and receive professional advice on how to develop an international literary career.

The New Voices from Europe selection is part of the Literary Europe Live project which is co-ordinated by Literature Across Frontiers and co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, with support from Arts Council Wales.

Ten New Voices - Biographies

ANDREI DÓSA (Romania)
Andrei Dósa (1985) was born in Braşov, Romania. He made his literary debut with Cînd va veni ceea ce este desăvîrşit (When Completeness Comes, 2011) for which he received the Mihai Eminescu Opera Prima National Award of Poetry and the Iustin Panţa Debut Prize. For his second book, Cartea Românească (American Experience, 2013), he was awarded the Young Poet of the Year prize at the Young Writers’ Gala. He published his third book Nada in 2015. He has contributed to the literary magazines Poesis International, Astra andCorpul T, and to the Club Literar website and the Lumina de Avarie writing workshop. He also works as translator of Hungarian literature into Romanian, mostly translating contemporary poets, including György Petri, István Kemény, and Szilárd Borbély, but also novels by Dezső Kosztolányi and Magda Szabó.

ARVIS VIGULS (Latvia)
Arvis Viguls (1987) is a Latvian poet, literary critic and translator from English, Spanish, Russian and Serbo-Croatian. His first poetry collection Istaba (A Room, 2009) received the Latvian Writers’ Union Prize for Best Debut Collection and the Poetry Days Award for Book of the Year. His second collection 5:00 (2012) was shortlisted for Best Poetry Collection of the Year and received the Anna Dagda Foundation Award. His poems have been published in anthologies and literary magazines in English, German and Russian. He has worked as the host of the literature programme at NABA radio. He lives and works in Riga, and is currently working on his third book. He has translated the works of Joseph Brodsky, Federico Garcia Lorca, Walt Whitman and W. B. Yeats, among others.

ASJA BAKIĆ (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Asja Bakić (1982) is a Bosnian poet, writer and translator. She was born in Tuzla, where she obtained a degree in Bosnian language and literature. She has published a book of poetry, Može i kaktus, samo neka bode (It Can Be a Cactus, as Long as it Pricks, 2009), which was nominated for the Kiklop Award for best debut. Her second book, a collection of short stories entitled Mars (2015), was shortlisted for the Edo Budiša Award for young writers. Her poems and stories have been translated into English, Polish, Czech, Macedonian, Slovenian, Romanian and Swedish. She writes the blog In the Realm of Melancholy (asjaba.com) and is co-editor of the feminist webzine Muff (muf.com.hr). Bakić participates in the European poetry platform Versopolis. She has translated Emily Dickinson, Alejandra Pizarnik, Elizabeth Bishop, Emil Cioran, Jacques Rancière and other prominent authors into Croatian. She currently lives and works in Zagreb.

BRONKA NOWICKA (Poland)
Bronka Nowicka was born in 1974 in Radomsk, Poland. She is a film director, scriptwriter and poet. She graduated in Film Directing from the Film School in Łódź and in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where she is now a PhD student in the Multimedia Department. She frequently experiments with new media: for example, using tomographics and tomovideo (graphics and video prepared with the use of a tomograph and x-rays). Her first book Nakarmić kamień (To Feed a Stone, 2015), a collection of prose poetry, was awarded the Nike Literary Award, the most prestigious Polish literary prize, which had never before been awarded to a debut. Nowicka’s texts have been translated into English, German, Czech, Russian and Estonian and will be published in these languages in 2017.

CHARLOTTE VAN DEN BROECK (Belgium)
The Belgian poet Charlotte Van den Broeck (1991) studied English and German at university, and is now taking a degree course in Arts of the Spoken Word and Theatre at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. She made her debut with the poetry collection Kameleon (Chameleon, 2015) which was awarded the Herman de Coninck Debut prize. Her second collection Nachtroer (Night Oar) was published in January 2017. Her works have appeared in various literary journals in the Netherlands and Flanders. Some of her poems have been translated into German, English and Arabic. Besides being a poet, she is also a performer. She has performed at various events, including the Night of Poetry in Utrecht and the Saint Amour poetry performance tour.

LLŶR GWYN LEWIS (Wales)
Llŷr Gwyn Lewis (1987) is a Welsh-language writer and poet. Born and raised in Caernarfon, North Wales, he studied at the universities of Cardiff and Oxford before completing a doctorate on the work of T. Gwynn Jones and W.B. Yeats. Following a period as a lecturer in Welsh at universities in Swansea and Cardiff, he now works as a resource editor at the Welsh Joint Education Committee. His first poetry collection, Storm ar Wyneb yr Haul (Storm on the Face of the Sun) was published in 2014. His first prose work, Rhyw Flodau Rhyfel (Some Flowers of War), won the Creative Non-Fiction category in the 2015 Wales Book of the Year award. He has published poetry, fiction and articles in Welsh-language periodicals including Ysgrifau Beirniadol, Poetry Wales, Taliesin andO’r Pedwar Gwynt.

MANUEL ASTUR (Spain)
Manuel Astur (1980) is a Spanish writer, journalist and music producer. He teaches literature at the Escuela de Letras de Gijón. He has published the poetry collection Y encima es mi cumpleaños (And It’s My Birthday On Top of Everything, 2013), the novel Quince días para acabar con el mundo (Fifteen Days to End the World, 2014) and the essay Seré un anciano hermoso en un gran país (I’ll Be a Handsome Old Man in a Great Country, 2015), which have been acclaimed by critics and readers. His short stories have appeared in several Spanish anthologies and cultural magazines. From 2008 to 2010, he was the editor of the cultural magazine ARTO! de Madriz and he contributes to several publications, such as Tempo, Quimera and CTXT. In 2016, he was chosen by the culture section of the ABC daily as one of the six most outstanding fiction writers in Spanish.

NATHALIE RONVAUX (Luxembourg)
Nathalie Ronvaux (1977) is a poet and playwright from Luxembourg. She writes in French and has published four plays and five poetry collections, including La liberté meurt chaque jour au bout d’une corde (Freedom Dies Every Day at the End of a Rope, 2012) and two art books of poetry in collaboration with visual artists Bertrand Ney and Robert Brandy. Her first collection Vignes et louves (Vines and She-Wolves, 2011) was awarded the Encouragement Prize by the Servais Foundation in 2010. Her play La vérité m’appartient (The Truth Belongs to Me) received the first prize in the National Literary Contest in 2013 and was staged in Luxembourg in 2016.

SOPHIE DIVRY (France)
Sophie Divry (1979) is one of the outstanding novelists of the latest crop of French narrative writers. She has worked as a journalist for publications such as La Décroissance andLe Monde Diplomatique, and since 2016 has contributed to a radio programme on France Culture. An activist for feminist movements, Divry is an acute observer of our ever-shifting society. Her four novels explore a range of societal issues: loneliness in La Cote 400 (2013), which has been translated into English by Sîan Reynolds as The Library of Unrequited Love (MacLehose Press, 2014); religious beliefs in Journal d’un recommencement (Diary of a Renewal, 2013); everyday dissatisfaction in La condition pavillonnaire (The Suburban Condition, 2014) forthcoming in a translation by Alison Anderson as Madame Bovary of the Suburbs (MacLehose Press, 2017); and the discontent of an educated and disaffected French youth in Quand le diable sortit de la salle de bain (When the Devil Left the Bathroom, 2014). She won the Prix Wepler 2014 (Mention Spéciale) for La condition pavillonnaire and the Prix Trop Virilo 2015 for Quand le diable sortit de la salle de bain. In addition to English, her works have been translated into Spanish, Catalan, German, Swedish and Italian. Her latest work is a literary essay entitled Rouvrir le roman (Reopening the Novel, 2017).

STEINUNN G. HELGADÓTTIR (Iceland)
Steinunn G. Helgadóttir (1952) is a visual artist and well-known Icelandic poet and prose writer. She graduated at the Academy of Arts in Göteborg. Her first poetry collection Kafbátakórinn (The Submarine Choir) was published in 2011, and her second, Skuldunautar (Debtors), in 2013. Helgadóttir received the Jón úr Vör Poetry Award in 2011 and the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize for her novel Raddir úr húsi loftskeytamannsins (Voices From the Radio Operator‘s House), published in 2016. Her work, which encompasses paintings, installations and video paintings, has been exhibited at solo and group art exhibitions. She has also curated many art exhibitions in several museums in Reykjavik. Helgadóttir is currently working on her second novel. She lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland.

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