What Does the Future Hold for Books? (Debate in ENG)

Debate in collaboration with the French Institute Prague opens up the topic of books as objects in the constantly changing world facing the speed and immediacy of digital technology. Following up on the current exhibition by Elmgreen & Dragset: READ featuring also publication from “Fond Šalda” (supporting translations of French speaking authors in Czech language), the guests including Brigitte Ouvry-Vial (Professor of 20th Century Literature at Le Mans University), Lenka Hornakova-Civade (Czech writer living in France, whose latest book Amsterodamské vigilie has just been published by Argo) and writer Barbora Beranová will discuss the potential evolution of the book as an object, the current impact of the rise of audio books as well as the possible transformation of reading and what is at stake for the entire book chain.

The debate will be hosted by Saša Michailidis and will take place in English language. 

• Date: 7/2 2024 19.00

• in English

• free with a reservation

Brigitte Ouvry-Vial

Brigitte Ouvry-Vial holds a PhD in Arts and Sciences from Columbia University (NYC), is a former fellow at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and an honorary member of the French University Institute. She has had a dual career as a professor of literature and book studies at the University of Le Mans (France) and as an editor at a small independent publisher of foreign literature (Editions L'Inventaire, Paris). Her research focuses on the aesthetics of literary publishing in twentieth-century France and on the history of reading in Europe. He is project leader of the EU-funded interdisciplinary research programme READ-IT (Reading Europe Advanced Data Investigation Tool), which combines the humanities, digital humanities and artificial intelligence to identify commonalities in accounts of multilingual reading experiences and emotional responses of readers across time and space in Europe. Recent publications include Lire en Europe, published in collaboration with Lodovica Braida, (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2020) and Leggere en Europa, an expanded Italian version, (Edizione Carroci, Roma, 2023).

Lenka Horňáková-Civade

Lenka Horňáková-Civade is a writer and painter, recipient of the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, member of the Extraduction Commission of the Centre National du Livre (France). A graduate of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Economiques and the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague, she moved to France in 1994 and in 2010 published her first short story in her native language. She writes columns and short stories for Czech Radio and various magazines. Since 2016, she has been writing directly in French and translating her novels into Czech. Her first novel Giboulées de soleil was awarded the Prix Renaudot des lycéens 2016. Her second novel, Une verrière sous le ciel, was awarded the Prix Richelieu de la francophonie 2019. Her fourth and last novel, Un regard bleu, was published in 2022 and translated into Czech under the title Amsterodamské vigilie by Argo in 2023 with the support of the F.X. The book was published in the Czech Republic with the support of the F. X. Šalda Foundation.

Barbora Baronová

Barbora Baronová is a writer, editor, journalist and lecturer in publishing. She studied journalism and worked for many years with the small publishing house wo-men, where she also published several of her own works. Since 2016, she has been running publishing workshops to teach the process of publishing books from the initial idea of the author to the media feedback stage.

Fond Šalda

In 1993, the French Embassy in the Czech Republic announced the František Xaver Šalda Publication Support Programme. In the 30 years of its existence, it has supported the Czech translation of 645 literary works of various genres: novels, specialist literature, children's books, comics, etc. By covering all or part of the copyright or publishing costs, the programme helps to publish around ten projects each year, selected by a Franco-Czech committee. Between 2023 and 2024, the French Embassy in Prague and the French Institute have decided to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Fondation Šalda in an original way, by looking at the place that books and reading have in our hyperconnected society.