Theme

Lahti International Writers’ Reunion 2009
Theme 2009

IN OTHER WORDS

Writers say it in other words. Writers are heirs to storytellers from time immemorial, who tell tales and myths anew; or they are rascals, who turn old tales into objects of merry mockery or creative distortion. When a novel is recast as drama, an essay as a comic strip, or a poem as a libretto, what takes place? When literature is translated into another language, what is said in other words?

A writer is a seeker, someone who dives into emptiness, ceaselessly looking for new ways of saying things. In the laboratory of words, he or she makes ever-new experiments in order to find his or her own unique way of writing. At times the lights must be turned off or the windows opened wide, because whatever it is that the writer is looking for may only be found by tripping on it, or out there blowing in the wind.

Great literature heads the growth of language, but it is also an instrument, which sounds the voice of the outsiders of society, those who see the world in another way and speak of it in their own words.

Writers are also, and especially, needed when states, alliances or regimes come to crisis. In a world torn by conflicts, writers remind us that we must not submit to the dictatorship of one truth.

In other words, there will always be a need for thinking in other ways and for saying in other words.

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