The Villa Gillet
Founded in 1987, the Villa Gillet welcomes in Lyon fiction and non-fiction writers, artists and scholars from over the world to ponder issues relevant to our ever shiflting world. The Villa Gillet makes the work of exciting contemporary thinkers accessible to the largest audience possible, by organizing events during the year, and during its festivals : the International Forum on the Novel — happening every year in May since 2007— co-organized with "Le Monde", Walls and Bridges, a ten-day series of events that happened from 2011 to 2013 and Mode d'emploi : un festival des idées — a festival of public debates — initiated in 2012.
Jonas Lüscher
Luescher-DR
WRITER
FINALIST OF FRANZ HESSEL PRIZE 2013
Germany
Jonas Lüscher was born in Switzerland in 1976. After training to be a primary school teacher he worked in Berne, then in Munich for a few years in film production and as a playwright and screenwriter. After his studies at Munich’s School for Advanced Studies in Philosophy, he worked at the TTN (Technology-Theology-Natural Sciences) Institute of Ludwig-Maximilian University. Today he is a doctoral candidate working on his dissertation in the Philosophy Chair at Zurich’s Federal Polytechnical School. In 2013, he won the city of Berne’s Prize for literature as well as the Bavarian Prize for artistic promotion. He has just published Frühling der Barbaren (C.H. Beck, 2013).
Learn more about his novel...
Frühling der Barbaren (C.H. Beck, 2013)
On a trip to Tunisia, the main character of this skillfully crafted novel, the Swiss heir to the Preising factory, witnesses economic disaster: the pound sterling collapses and shortly thereafter England declares bankruptcy, which has unforeseeable consequences in Tunisia as well. As a Swiss citizen, Preising is naturally safe from the worst effects, but he is forced to see just how thin the veneer of civilization is. He gets a thorough lesson in globalization, from which even he does not escape unharmed. This captivating, intelligently constructed and purposely comical book dissects human failings, exposing the core of our contemporary world.
