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On Sunday, 8 January 2017, 11.00 a.m., the Small Hall of NTB shall host the first conference of this year, held by Matei Vișniec: Festival d'Avignon, theatre capital of the world

About the Conference

„The Festival d’Avignon is the most important of France and one of the greatest in the world. Since 1947, it became a true international cultural legend, inspiring many other cities. Each July, in the city of Popes on the shore of the Rhone, a kind of cultural pilgrimage unfolds, the theatre being its foremost dimension, but not the only one. This festival is also a social and political phenomenon (as it turns into a debate forum), and a touristic and economic one, as well as a genuine show market. Since 1990, I have never missed a single year in Avignon (where I also had systematically staged plays in the unofficial OFF section). I was, somehow unwillingly, the witness of an evolution, of an exponential growth of the festival, as nowadays, its posters feature around 40 shows in the IN section and over 1300 plays in the OFF section. This festival is a fascinating cultural and human adventure, often placed under the sign of avant-garde and challenge, worth telling.” Matei Vișniec

The conference held by Matei Vişniec shall be illustrated with images from the documentary film „Matei Vişniec – King in Avignon”, a TVR Iaşi production from 2015 produced by Andreea Știliuc (film-maker), Relu Tabără (image), Dragoș Brehnescu (editing).

About Matei Vișniec

Matei Vişniec is a poet, playwright, novelist, journalist, member of several creative associations of Romania and France. He was born on 29 January 1956 in Bucovina, at Rădăuţi, fabulous city divided in two (cemetery included) by a railway representing for the author the axis of symmetry of the universe. The town is amply described in the novel published by Matei Vişniec at Cartea Românească and entitled „Pass-Parol Cafe”. His mother, Minodora, was a nursery school teacher, his father, Ioan, was a clerk.

He made his poetry debut in the fourth grade, when he versified a fable by La Fontaine. Later on, he discovered in literature a zone of freedom and he nurtured himself with pages from Kafka, Dostoyevsky, Camus, Poe, Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Nichita Stănescu and many other writers, not contaminated by Socialist Realism. He liked very much the Surrealists, the Dadaists, the fantastic stories, the absurd and grotesque theatre, the oneiric poetry and even the Anglo-Saxon realist theatre, in short, almost everything except the „official” literature of the Communist regime.

He studies philosophy in Bucharest and becomes very active within the 80’s generation, being a founding member of the Monday Literary Circle. He believes in cultural resistance and in the capacity of literature to overthrow totalitarianism. He especially believes that theatre and poetry may denunciate the manipulation of man through the „great ideas", as well as the brainwashing through ideological speeches.

Before 1987, he becomes known in Romania through his purified, lucid poetry, written with acrimony. From 1977, he writes theatre plays massively circulating in the literary milieu, but which are banned from the professional stages. His prose remains however ‘on shelf’, as well as the novel „ Pass-Parol Café”, written in 1982/1983 and only published after the fall of Ceauşescu.

In September 1987 he leaves Romania with a tourist visa and arrives in France where he applies for political asylum. He starts writing in French, works at from 1988 to 1999, and then he starts working for Radio France Internationale. He becomes a French citizen in 1993, but also keeps his Romanian citizenship.

As of 1987, since he has been living in France, his plays have transgressed the borders and his name has been on posters in approximately 40 countries. His plays are published at the Actes Sud - Papiers, Lansman, Espace D’un Instant, Non Lieu Publishing Houses.

However, Matei Vişniec is also the author of a prose which some critics consider atypical. A first novel, “The Pass-Parol Café”, written in 1983, has only been published after the fall of Communism. “Panic Syndrome in the City of Lights” was one of the most appreciated novels of the year 2009, receiving the award of the Observator Culturalmagazine. Matei Vişniec has further published, in 2010, the novel „The Release of Mr. K”, written in 1988 in the first year of his Parisian exile, which he waited for over 20 years before sending it to be published. The novel „A Merchant of Novel’s Beginnings” was awarded in 2014 the Augustin Frăţilă prize.

He received in 2009 the European Award of The French Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers for his entire activity; the “Jean Monnet” Award for European Literature in 2016 for the novel „A Merchant of Novel’s Beginnings” (Jacqueline Chambon Actes Sud Publishing). In Romania, his books were distinguished repeatedly with the Writer’s Guild Drama Award (most recently in 2015), the Drama Award of the Romanian Academy, the special UNITER Award for the Most Enacted Romanian Contemporary Playwright (2016).

2016 Overview:

Matei Vişniec’s have been translated into over 30 languages. Some of his plays have been enacted in major European theatres: Rond Point Theatre des Champs Elysées in Paris, Stary Theatre of Cracow, Piccolo Theatre of Milano, Royal Theatre of Stokholm, Young Vic Theatre of London, National Theatre of Istanbul, Maxim Gorki Theatre of Berlin, Teatro Stabile of Catania (Sicily).

Since 2006, his plays have been staged at a pace of one every two years by the Kaze Theatre of Tokyo.

Numerous shows based on his plays were produced in Brazil, after É Realizações Publishing House from São Paulo started in 2010 to massively publish his plays (around 20 to date).

After the fall of Communism, in 1989, Matei Vişniec becomes one of the most enacted authors in Romania, with shows produced on all national stages (Bucharest, Iaşi, Cluj, Craiova, Timişoara), as well as in countless other cities. Numerous radio plays produced by the National Theatre Live.

Recent publications in Romania:

- At the Cartea Românească Publishing House: The Spider in the Wound(theatre), 2007; The Hole in the Ceiling(theatre), 2007; The Human Trashcan. The Body of a Woman as a Battlefield in the Bosnian War(theatre), 2007; The Pass – Parol Café (novel), 2008; Panic Syndrome in the City of Lights(novel), 2009; The Release of Mr. K. (novel), 2010; Preventive Disorder(novel), 2011; Dinner with Marx (poetry), 2011; Word Cabaret (theatre), 2012; A Merchant of Novel’s Beginnings (novel), 2013; The Man from Whom the Evil was Extracted(theatre), 2015; Shoe Loves, Umbrella Loves (novel), 2016

- At the Paralela 45 Publishing House: The Town With a Single Inhabitant(poetry anthology), 2005; A Paris Attic Overlooking Death(theatre), 2005; The One-Winged Man(theatre), 2006; How to Explain the History of Communism to Mental Patients (theatre), 2007; Just Imagine that You are God! (theatre), 2008; Occident Express & About the Sensation of Elasticity When Walking Upon Corpses(theatre), 2009; The Man in the Circle(short theatre anthology), 2010

- At the Humanitas Publishing House: The Chekhov Machine & On the Frailty of Stuffed Seagulls (theatre), 2008; Love Letters to a Chinese Princess (poetic prose), 2011; The Trial of Communism through Theatre(theatre), 2012; The Balkan Trilogy & Migraaaants (theatre), 2016

Translated by Simona Nichiteanu