Sauvagement, bien à toi

Reading

Lecture bilingue fr croate Chloe Billon Olja Savicevic

Sunday 21 September
14.45u - 15.30u

Price: Gratuit - Gratis - Free Language: French - Croatian Location: Scene

with

Chloé Billon & Olja Savičević

Presentations

Olja Savičević will read some excerpts from her latest poetry collection, Sauvagement, bien à toi, translated from Croatian by Chloé Billon, who will accompany her in French.

In Sauvagement, bien à toi, Olja Savičević brings us feminist poetry and invites us to stay close to our inner wildness in a world that is constantly at risk of losing its humanity and delicacy. The book will be available in bookstores in September 2025.

Feministička poezija nas poziva da, u svijetu koji sve više gubi svoju ljudskost i delikatnost, ostanemo u bliskom kontaktu sa svojom unutarnjom divljom prirodom.

ABOUT THE WRITERS

Olja Savičević is one of the leading voices in contemporary Croatian literature. A novelist, poet, and playwright, her work is both politically engaged and sensual, exploring the intimate and the political. Translated into more than 14 languages, her writing combines tenderness and bite.

Chloé Billon is a brilliant translator of literature from ex-Yugoslavia. Winner of several awards: Grand Prix de la Traduction d'Arles, Prix du Premier Roman Étranger...

A FEW EXCERPTS

Des mains les ont levés haut du sol de terre battue

Et installés dans les bras de petites maisons

Le village les a retournés sur le dos et chauffé

leurs corps au soleil

Mais rien de particulier n’est arrivé à ces garçons

Qui sont devenus nos pères

__________

D’aucuns jouaient à leurs jeux

D’aucuns suivaient leur étoile

Et moi j’avais l’ardeur de l’été

Et une pastèque sucrée de Macédoine

___________

Nous avons peut-être encore le temps

De nous rencontrer

Et de nous embrasser à la face du monde

Qu’est-ce que tu en penses

Si nous faisons tout ça

Est-ce qu’il va arriver vite

ce vingt-deuxième siècle

Our speakers

Olja Savičević

Olja Savičević (Split, 1974) is one of the most prominent contemporary Croatian writers and a representative of the "lost generation"—those who were teenagers at the time of the breakup of former Yugoslavia. Her politically and socially engaged work is featured in numerous Croatian anthologies and international selections. Her novels, poetry collections, and plays have received numerous awards both in Croatia and abroad—among them, the Prix du premier roman étranger in France for Adios Cowboy and the English PEN Award in the UK for her novel Singer in the Night. Her books have been translated into fourteen languages, and excerpts of her prose and poetry into over forty languages. Olja Savičević has been making a living from her writing for about fifteen years. In addition to poetry and prose, she writes children’s books, theatre texts, and articles for the press. She also works as an editor and conducts writing workshops. She currently lives and works in Zagreb. Among her most well-known works are the novels Adios Cowboy, Singer in the Night, and Summers with Marija, as well as the poetry collections Mamasafari, The Rules of the House, and Wildly, Yours. As of now, only Adios Cowboy and Wildly, Yours have been translated into French.

Chloé Billon

Chloé Billon is a literary translator and conference interpreter. After studying English and German literature, she pursued a degree in Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian at Inalco, completing a Master's in literary translation. She also holds a diploma in conference interpreting from ESIT and was part of the 2016–2018 cohort at the French National Book Center's Literary Translation School (ETL). She received the 2020 Inalco–VO/VF Translation Prize for Turbines du Titanic by Robert Perišić, and the 2023 Grand Translation Prize of the City of Arles for The Fox by Dubravka Ugrešić. Her translation of Adios Cowboy by Olja Savičević won the 2020 First Foreign Novel Prize. She mainly translates from Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian, as well as from German and English. She has translated several contemporary authors from the Balkans.