Juan Gabriel Vásquez

The event will take place exclusively online in the free YouTube livestream. Questions and discussion contributions can be submitted in the live chat of the event or gladly in advance via email to info@dai-heidelberg.de.
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How seemingly trivial incidents can change a life from the ground up – that’s what Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s new stories are about.
There is the young man whom the lot spares from military service, while it sends his best friend to his death. Or the photographer who understands more than she bargains for at a meeting of landowners. In some stories, it is politics that throws people off course: a self-assured woman tries to assert herself against arch-conservative forces, but her hopes go up in flames.

Sometimes Juan Gabriel Vásquez takes the stage himself, trying to find out, for example, what happened between the members of the Mexican band he is accompanying on tour. Another time he participates as an extra in the shooting of a film by Roman Polanski and is confronted with the painful breaks in the life of the famous director.

In his collection of stories Songs for the Conflagration, the acclaimed Colombian author raises questions in a whole new way about what shapes us and why. The haunting tone of his language exerts an irresistible pull.

The event will be held in English.