CEU hosts Hay Festival Events

May 31, 2012

Budapest, April 26, 2012—For 25 years Hay Festival has brought together writers from around the world to debate and share stories at its festival in the staggering beauty of the Welsh Borders. Hay celebrates great writing from poets and scientists, lyricists and comedians, novelists and environmentalists, and the power of great ideas to transform our way of thinking. The festival creates an exchange of views and a meeting of minds, inspiring revelations personal, political and educational. Hay is, in Bill Clinton's phrase, ‘The Woodstock of the mind’. This year Budapest has also joined the Hay, which now runs 15 festivals across five continents.

There will be conversations with renowned representatives of literature and art, scientific and public life inspiring each other and the audience with their thoughts and stories. The event begins on Friday, 4 May, at PECSA Music Hall, with a concert by Bob Geldof, the anti-poverty campaigner and an iconic figure of the 1985 Live Aid concert. Next day the Petofi Museum of Literature (PIM) and Central European University (CEU) will host meetings with prominent artists and authors.

The Center for Arts and Culture (CAC) at CEU will host 3 programs from the 14 festival events:

There is no admission fee for the events, however, an rsvp to cac@ceu.hu is greatly appreciated.

 1. Jung Chang talks to John Kampfner

Introduced by Markos Kounalakis, Senior Fellow at the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at CEU. 

The author and biographer of Mao Zedong discusses her work and the changes China has seen in the decades since she wrote the global bestseller Wild Swans.
Date:               Friday, May 4

Time:              6.00 p.m.

Venue:            CEU (1051, Nador 9.), Auditorium

The event is in English.

In association with Google .

Jung Chang is the author of the best-selling books Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (which the Asian Wall Street Journal called the most read book about China), and Mao: The Unknown Story (with Jon Halliday). Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies, in addition to millions in pirated editions and computer downloads in mainland China where both books are banned. Among the many awards she has won are the UK Writers’ Guild Best Non-Fiction (1992) and Book of the Year UK (1993). Jung Chang is currently completing a biography of the Empress Dowager of China, Cixi (1835-1908), to be published in 2013.
Jung Chang has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Buckingham, York and Warwick, the Open University, UK, and Bowdoin College, USA.

John Kampfner is Adviser to Google on freedom of expression and culture. He is an author, broadcaster and commentator specialising in UK politics, international affairs, media and human rights issues. He is also Chair of the board of Turner Contemporary, one of the UK's highest profile art galleries. The opening of the gallery in Margate in April 2011 received plaudits around the world, and it is regarded as one of the UK's most important culture-driven regeneration projects.
From Sept 2008 until March 2012 he was Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, one of the world's leading free expression organisations. In late 2009 Index launched a successful campaign to change UK libel laws.

Markos Kounalakis is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Media and Communication Studies at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.  He is President and Publisher Emeritus of the Washington Monthly. Kounalakis is a print and network broadcast journalist and author who covered wars and revolutions, both civil and technological.  He returns to Hungary twenty-plus years after his first reporting assignment in early 1989. He reported the overthrow of communism for Newsweek in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, and the outbreak of ethnic strife and war in Yugoslavia. After Newsweek, he worked as the NBC Radio and Mutual News Moscow correspondent and covered the fall of the Soviet Union as well as the war in Afghanistan. Kounalakis has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The International Herald-Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and many other regional and international newspapers and magazines. 

2. Dr. Rolf Strom-Olsen talks to Georg von Habsburg, chaired by Revel Guest

The European controversy, threats and opportunities. An exchange of the crucial issues facing the European Union, its past and its future.

Sponsored by IE university with the collaboration of CEU.

The event is in English. 

Sponsored by IE university with the collaboration of CEU.  

Date:               Saturday, May 5

Time:              6.00 p.m.

Venue:            CEU Auditorium

Rolf Strom-Olsen is a co-founder and current president of UR Mobile Services Inc. He obtained his BA cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. After a stint at CNN, he embarked upon graduate studies, first at McGill University, and later at Northwestern University, focusing on the early modern history of Spain and the Low Countries. A Fulbright scholar to Spain in 1998-99, and a Social Sciences Research Council fellow in 2000, he has published a variety of articles and reviews on European history. In 2001, he turned to business, co-founding UR Mobile, a company that focuses on providing digital media services to the medical and scientific community. He has also served as a corporate director and currently sits on the board of PulmoScience Inc, a medical research company. He is an Associate Professor at IE University.

Georg von Habsburg – Austrian and Hungarian journalist, politician, public figure. He worked several years for ZDF Television in Germany. He has lived in Hungary since 1993; he is a Hungarian citizen. In 1996 he became Ambassador Extraordinary of the Republic of Hungary, and since 2004 he has been President of the Hungarian Red Cross. 

Revel Guest is a filmmaker, journalist, author, farmer and chair of Hay Festival. She was the first woman producer/director of BBC's Panorama. In 1968 she formed Transatlantic Films, the first truly independent documentary film company to co-produce quality films for the international television market.  Since its creation 40 years ago, Transatlantic has produced over one hundred and fifty films and series, working in co-production with the BBC, Channel 4 and other major U.K. broadcasters, as well as with leading TV networks in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe - Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, A&E, Group W, Metromedia, PBS, ABC, TVNZ, TF1, La Cinquieme, NDR, ORF.

3. My Beautiful Laundrette

A showing of the modern classic movie followed by a talk with the screenwriter Hanif Kureishi and Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival.

Date:               Saturday, May 5

Time:              8.30 p.m. - 11 p.m.

Venue:            CEU (1051, Nador 9.), Auditorium

The event is in English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian.

Hanif Kureishi is a playwright, screenwriter, novelist and film-maker. His screenplay for the film My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears, was nominated for an Academy Award. The film was critically acclaimed for its sensitive depiction of a homosexual relationship between a gay skinhead and a young Asian man. He also wrote the screenplays for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me (1991), which he also directed. His film My Son the Fanatic was adapted from his short story included in Love in a Blue Time (1997). The film was first shown at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. His play Sleep With Me (1999) was first performed at the National Theatre in London in 1999, and was followed by When the Night Begins (2004), produced at the Hampstead Theatre in 2004.

Peter Florence is the Director of the Guardian Hay Festival and the Orange Word. He found Hay Festival with his father, Norman Florence, funding the first festival with winnings from a poker game. He was educated at Ipswich School, Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Paris and has an MA in Modern and Medieval Literatures. He holds honorary doctorates from The Open University and The University of Glamorgan, and is a Fellow of Hereford College of Arts, The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the British-American Project, and is Creative Fellow at the University of Bangor.He was made a "Colombiano de Corazon" by President Álvaro Uribe for his work in Colombia.

 

Notes for Editors:

Central European University is a U.S.- and Hungarian accredited institution of graduate education specializing in the social sciences and humanities, public policy, and business. It seeks to contribute to the development of open societies in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and emerging democracies worldwide through an educational system rooted in the creative, critical, and comparative examination of ideas. CEU is an advanced center of research and policy analysis that facilitates academic dialogue while preparing its graduates to serve as leaders and scholars.

 

Hay Festival – Detailed Programme:

4 May 2012

20.00-22.00 PECSA 

Bob Geldof concert

The festival begins with the concert by the great Irish folk-punk-rock legend, who will play pieces from his new album How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell, too.  

BOB GELDOF – Irish singer, songwriter, author, actor, political activist. After being the lead singer of the Irish rock band, he started his solo carrier. His name became widely known in the summer of 1985 when he organized the charity super-concert and aid program, in recognition of which he was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II. Under the umbrella of the campaign against famine in Africa, in October 1999 he organized Net Aid where he appeared in the company of such artists as Wyclef Jean, Brian Ferry, Jimmy Page, and Bono. He has been an extremely active spokesman of the fight against third world poverty. Bob Geldof has released more than a dozen albums in his carrier, and according to the BBC review, his latest record, How to Compose Songs That Will Sell (2011) is ‘without doubt his best album’. The venue of the concert: Petőfi Music Hall (PECSA), H-1146 Budapest Városliget, Zichy Mihály út 14. www.pecsamusichall.hu Tickets for the Bob Geldof concert can be purchased for HUF 3000 in advance and HUF 3500 on the day at the concert venue (PECSA), at Ticket Express offices or through the website: www.tex.hu. 

 

 4-5 MAY 2012

Conversations with world-famous authors and poets in the Petőfi Museum of Literature and Central European University 

VENUES:

PIM – Petőfi Museum of Literature, 1053 Budapest, Károlyi Mihály utca 16. – www.pim.hu

CEU – Central European University, 1051 Budapest, Nádor utca 9. – www.ceu.hu

 

4 MAY

Friday

18.00-19.00 CEU 

Jung Chang talks to John Kampfner

The author and biographer of Mao Zedong discusses her work and the changes China has seen in the decades since she wrote the global bestseller Wild Swans. Introduced by Markos Kounalakis
In English

JUNG CHANG – Chinese-British writer, now living in London. She is best known for her family autobiography Wild Swans, selling over 10 million copies worldwide and translated to thirty languages. Her biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: The Unknown Story A Mao, written with her husband, was published in June 2005. 

 

5 MAY

Saturday

10.00-10.45 PIM        

Tibor Fischer talks to Judit Friedrich  

The novelist talks about his work from Under The Frog and The Thought Gang to Good to be God and Crushed Mexican Spiders.

In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

TIBOR FISCHER – British novelist and short story writer of Hungarian origins. In 1993, he was selected by the influential literary magazine Granta as one of the 20 best young British writers. Some of his successful volumes (Under the Frog, The Thought Gang, The Collector Collector, Don’t Read This If You’re Stupid, Good to Be God) were published in Hungary, too. In 1992, Under the Frog was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker prize.  

11.00-11.45 PIM

Bob Geldof talks to Peter Florence

A conversation with the singer and activist about Africa, music and love.

In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

12.00-12.45 PIM

Ángeles Caso talks to Ana Gavín

The Spanish novelist (Contra el Viento) journalist and biographer of Empress Elizabeth talks about art and life, fiction, and reality.

In Spanish, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

ÁNGELES CASO – is a Spanish journalist, art historian, and author. Her novel on Empress Elizabeth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Elisabeth, emperatriz de Austria-Hungría o el hada) has been a huge success. Her other books also reflect her interest in history. In 2001, on the occasion of the Verdi centennial she published the composer’s biography (Giuseppe Verdi, la intensa vida de un genio).   

13.00-13.45 PIM

Shigeru Ban talks to Martha Thorne

The Japanese architect (The Pompidou Centre’s Metz Museum, Japanese Pavilion at Hanover) discusses his work in sustainable materials and his disaster relief work with the Director of the Pritzker Prize. Introduced by Dave Venables (AHEC).

In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

SHIGERU BAN – Japanese architect, who was profiled by Time magazine in their projection of 21st century innovators in the field of architecture and design. Among his major works are the Musée d'art Moderne Georges PompidouMetz, France or the Japanese Pavilion (2000) at the Hannover World Exhibition Expo 2000HannoverGermany. He is most famous for his innovative work with paper, particularly recycled cardboard paper tubes used to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims (Rwanda, India, Turkey, Sri Lanka).  

 

14.00-14.45 PIM

Hanif Kureishi talks to Tiffany Murray

The playwright, novelist (The Buddha of Suburbia, Something to Tell You) and film-maker (The Mother, The Black Album, My Son the Fanatic, Venus) discusses his work with the author of Diamond Star Halo

In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

HANIF KUREISHI – English playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short story writer. He was born in Kent to a Pakistani father and an English mother. His volumes Intimacy and The Buddha of Suburbia were published in Hungary, too. His most famous screenplays: The Mother, My Beautiful Launderette, My Son the Fanatic, Intimacy, London Kills Me.  

15.00-15.45 PIM        

László F. Földényi talks to Gábor Bednanics  

The art historian, literary scholar and essayist in conversation with the young literary critic, an expert on contemporary Hungarian literature.

In Hungarian, with simultaneous translation to English 

LÁSZLÓ F. FÖLDÉNYI – art historian, literary scholar and essayist. His major works include: Melankólia (Melancholy), A lélek szakadéka. Goya Szaturnusza (Goya and the Abyss of the Soul), Veronika kendője. Múzeumi séták. (Veronica’s Shroud), A mozi alkimista – Forgács Péter filmjei (Cinema’s Alchemist: The Films of Peter Forgacs)

16.00-16.45 PIM        

Ben Okri talks to Jon Gower

The Booker winner (The Famished Road) reads and discusses his poetry and essays.

In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

BEN OKRI – Nigerian poet and novelist. He is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial tradition and has been compared favourably with authors like Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez. At the age of 21 he published his first novel (Flowers and Shadows) which was a great success. From 1983 to 1986 he served West Africa magazine as a poetry editor and was a regular contributor to the BBC world service between 1983 and 1985. In 1991 he won the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road

17.00-17.45 PIM        

György Dragomán speaks to Árpád Kollár

The award-winning translator and novelist talks about his works A pusztítás könyve (The Book of Destruction) and A fehér király (The White King).

GYÖRGY DRAGOMÁN – József Attila Prize winning author and translator.  His second novel, A fehér király (The White King) became an international success and has been translated to 28 languages. The novel has received favourable reviews by the most influential international magazines.  

18.00-18.45 CEU       

Dr Rolf Strom-Olsen speaks to Georg von Habsburg; chaired by Revel Guest.

The European controversy, threats and opportunities. An exchange of the crucial issues facing the European Union, its past and its future.

Sponsored by IE university with the collaboration of CEU.

Dr. Rolf Strom-Olsen is Professor of Intellectual History and Humanities at IE University and IE Business School in Spain. Prof. Strom-Olsen holds a Phd in History by Northwestern University and is a specialist on European History. 

In English

H.I.R.H. GEORG VON HABSBURG – Austrian and Hungarian journalist, politician, public figure. He worked several years for ZDF Television in Germany. He has lived in Hungary since 1993; he is a Hungarian citizen. In 1996 he became Ambassador Extraordinary of the Republic of Hungary, and since 2004 he has been President of the Hungarian Red Cross. 

18.00-18.45 PIM

Noémi Kiss, Krisztina Tóth and Zsófia Bán Zsófia talk to Péter Gerőcs.  In Hungarian, with simultaneous translation to English 

ZSÓFIA BÁN – writer, literary critic. Her major works: Próbacsomagolás (Test Packaging) and Esti iskola – olvasókönyv felnőtteknek (Night School: A Reader for Adults). Her latest book – Amikor még cask állatok éltek (When There Were Only Animals) – will come out in early June 2012. 

NOÉMI KISS – author, literary critic, she obtained her PhD in Hungarian language and literature. Her major volumes: Rongyos ékszerdoboz – utazások keleten (Shabby Jewelry Box – Journey in the East) and Trans (short stories) which has been translated to English, Serbian and German

KRISZTINA TÓTH – one of the most highly acclaimed Hungarian poets. She is the winner of several awards, including the Grave Prize (1996), Déry Tibor Prize (1996), and József Attila Prize (2000). Her poetry has been translated to several languages.   

19.00-20.00 PIM

Hay 25 – Ben Okri, Jung Chang, László Földényi F, György Dragomán, Tibor Fischer, Tiffany Murray talk to Jon Gower.

The Hay Festival is 25 this year, and as part of the celebrations we have put 25 Questions to everyone taking part in all our 15 festivals around the world.  Please join the panel to discuss three of the Questions – Why do we read books?  We’re building a library of literature, music and cinema. Which one book, film and album would you contribute to it? 25 years ago, the whole world lived in fear of an aids pandemic, the Berlin Wall divided east and Western Europe, China and Latin America were considered part of the developing world and less than 1% of the world’s population used mobile phones or computers. What changes will we see to the way we live now in 25 years’ time?

In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

20.30-23.00 CEU

My Beautiful Laundrette – screening. A showing of the modern classic movie followed by a talk with the screenwriter Hanif Kureishi and Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival.  In English, with simultaneous translation to Hungarian

 

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets for the discussions can be purchased at the ticket office of Petőfi Museum of Literature from 25 April, or prior to the event. Adults: HUF 400/discussion Pensioners/students: HUF 250/discussion. Buy three tickets or more in one transaction to receive a 25% discount. On 5 May tickets purchased for discussions at PIM entitle visitors to see the exhibitions of the Museum as well. The events taking place at CEU and the HAY 25 roundtable discussion are free of charge.