Masterclass lecture at The Conrad Award Gala 2023
The Conrad Award Gala (Gala Nagrody Conrada), Conrad Festival 2023, presents The Conrad Prize for best prose debut. As in previous years, the award ceremony features a masterclass on writing. – presented by Mikołaj Grynberg and Intan Paramaditha.
29 October, at 20:00 ICE Kraków Congress Centre, Marii Konopnickiej 17
An excerpt from Intan Paramaditha’s lecture:
“I will start and end this lecture with quotes from women writers of color who question borders.
Gloria Anzaldua a Mexican American author with indigenous heritage, tells us about why she writes: “I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you.”
I am not standing here alone. I am standing here with witches – those who have gone before, those who are brewing, and those who will rise.
Gloria Anzaldua, born in 1942 and died in 2004, is one of those witches. I carry her traces with me as one of my literary influences – or rather, literary witches. I turn to Gloria Anzaldua because I want to talk about the importance of rethinking, questioning, and denaturalising literary influences as a creative practice and a political act.
When I was asked to deliver this lecture, I listened to previous lectures at the Conrad Festival Gala. Jonathan Franzen addressed the issue of literary influences, one of the difficult questions that writers often receive.
Who are your literary influences? Are they the authors you read religiously when you were 19—because they were there with you when you tried to make sense of the world? Why are some writers influenced by EM Foster, Joseph Conrad, or Jonathan Franzen, while for some others, Toni Morrison, Gloria Anzaldua, and Nawal El Sadaawi have left a tremendous impact. And still, some others are influenced by Marianne Katoppo, Toeti Heraty, and Siti Rukiah-- you may not know these names.”
Intan Paramaditha delivered a Master lecture at The Conrad Award Gala, Conrad Festival 2023.