Write About Now - Starting from Here: Every Place Tells a Story

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York’s premiere French cultural center, along with Bookforum magazine and the Villa Gillet, presents a new season of its literary program Write About Now, a forum for French and American-based authors to meet in conversation. Writers will engage in dynamic discussions, each organized around a topic that constitutes a cultural common ground and jumping-off point for fascinating literary exchange. Albert Mobilio, editor of Bookforum, will moderate.

“Survivor” means many things to many people, depending on whether it is used by artists, psychologists, or politicians. Does “survivor” describe someone who has simply endured trauma, or does the term imply a more heroic conquest of fate? Noted novelists Francisco Goldman and Philippe Forest will parse this word’s usage and deepen our understanding of what surviving might mean—in fiction, as well as in life.