Livestream - Arctic Imagination: Jonathan Franzen (US) in conversation with Kristina Stoltz
Follow along from home on livestream when Jonathan Franzen (US) takes the stage in the Queen's Hall in conversation with Kristina Stoltz.
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Livestream - Jonathan Franzen and Kristina Stoltz
Conversation with Jonathan Franzen live from International Authors' Stage in the Black Diamond.
Jonathan Franzen has been hailed for years as one of America's most prominent authors, and is currently working on the novel Crossroads.
Now he is a guest at International Authors' Stage, where, based on the novel Crossroads (2021) and the essay What if we stopped pretending (2019), he will focus on the impact of climate change on our existence.
An iteration of "the unspeakable"
Franzen has said that the themes of Crossroads are an iteration of the unspeakable
, which he believes is particularly salient in these times: Rejection of facts, rejection of science, rejection of anything, whether it be state or scientific or intellectual authority. We are in super-religious times, a kind of endgame, and I can't help but relate to the kind of looming prospect that climate catastrophe is. Everyone is going crazy,
he has said. Crossroads is a novel that digs deep into the psychology of its characters, depicting the United States from the time of the Vietnam War onwards. A nation he believes is in turmoil and in the midst of enormous change.
The inevitable climate apocalypse
In 2019, Jonathan Franzen published the groundbreaking essay What if we stopped pretending in The New Yorker. The essay sparked considerable debate, not least among climate activists from around the world. The subtitle of the essay may indicate why - it contains the text's inherent provocation: The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can not prevent it.
Already the year before, Franzen had published an entire collection of essays, based on his love of nature, in particular of birds and endangered bird species, entitled The end of the end of the Earth.
On International Writers' Stage, the well-known American author will not only appear as an award-winning fiction writer, but also as a debating voice who can make half of Twitter see red.
The actor Thomas Levin participates in the reading of excerpts from Franzen 's Crossroads.
Part of Arctic Imagination
The event is part of the talk series Arctic Imagination, which has been created in collaboration between the Royal Danish Library and a number of cultural institutions in Canada: the Ideas of North Festival, the National Arts Center and the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Arctic Imagination focuses on the disappearing ice in the Arctic and the accelerating climate change with a unified platform that combines experience and creativity. Here, the world's most urgent theme will be discussed in conversation formats between artists on the stages of the major cultural institutions in the countries concerned.
Participants
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen (b. 1959) is an American author and essayist. He had his big break with the novel The Corrections (2001), for which he received the National Book Award. The novel Purity was published in 2015 and cemented Franzen's position as one of America's most important authors.
Kristina Stoltz
Kristina Stoltz is one of Danish contemporary literature's most versatile and critically acclaimed authors who, since her debut in 2000 with the poetry collection Selvmordere og andre lysende blomsterkranse, has written poems, short stories, children's books and novels. She is one of the Danish fiction writers who are also important voices of debate when it comes to the climate crisis and its consequences for our daily life and existence. Stolz is current with the generational novel For evigt.
DM&MA is a partner and sponsor of Students Only!
Thanks to the Nordic Culture Fund for support.
