Stories from Sweden: Balsam Karam & Saskia Vogel: The Singularity
- €18
- Marino Church, Bantry
- 14/07/2025 - 2:30 pm
The Singularity is a lyrical and devastating novel by Balsam Karam, a Swedish author of Kurdish ancestry. It is a study of grief, migration and motherhood from one of Sweden’s most exciting new novelists. It was translated into English by Saskia Vogel and published by multi-award-winning publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions. Saskia will also take part in this event.
‘Meanwhile elsewhere – just as the light turns green and the cars along a coastline prepare to leave the city towards the half-desert and the mountains – more slowly than ever a woman crosses the highway, which, along with the corniche, is all that holds the ocean ever rising at bay. The woman is alone, searching for her child.’
Balsam and Saskia will be in conversation with Cristín Leach.
In an unnamed coastal city, home to many refugees, a mother of a displaced family searches for her child, calling her name as she wanders along the cliffside road where her daughter used to work. She searches and searches until, devoid of hope and frantic with grief, she throws herself into the sea, leaving her other children behind. Bearing witness to this suicide is another woman – on a business trip, pregnant with a child she will lose. In the wake of her pain, the second woman remembers other losses – of a language, a country, an identity – when once her family fled a distant war.
‘The Singularity is a novel that appears to have been created from dark matter, elusive, giddying and with an enormous linguistic and narrative density.’ Expressen
Balsam Karam’s and Saskia Vogel’s attendance at West Cork Literary Festival is supported by the Swedish Arts Council in collaboration with the Embassy of Sweden, UK as part of their Stories From Sweden programme
Writers
Writer
Balsam Karam
Writer
Saskia Vogel
Writer
