{"id":8384,"date":"2016-11-03T13:56:52","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T18:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/?p=8384"},"modified":"2017-06-09T16:16:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T20:16:38","slug":"european-voices-a-reading-conversation-with-lola-lafon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/2016\/11\/03\/european-voices-a-reading-conversation-with-lola-lafon\/","title":{"rendered":"Event Highlights: European Voices: A Reading &#038; Conversation with Lola Lafon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday October 27th, The Pardee School of Global Studies\u2019 Center for the Study of Europe partnered with the Association Francophone de Boston University to bring French author Lola Lafon to Boston University. The conversation with the author was moderated by AFBU Faculty Advisor Liliane Dus\u00e9woir, Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in French and Spanish in BU&#8217;s Department of Romance Studies. <\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/11054951@N04\/albums\/72157677985856166\" title=\"10.27.16\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/341\/31732359386_6250a08423_z.jpg\" width=\"710\" height=\"471\" alt=\"10.27.16\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Culturally, Lafon\u2019s background is a m\u00e9lange of French, Russian, and Polish. She was also raised in the diverse cities of Bucharest, Sofia, and Paris. In addition to her multiculturalism, Lafon is also an author with a multidisciplinary skill set. A dancer and musician turned author, Lafon came onto the scene with a natural talent for writing. \u201cI wrote because I needed to write,\u201d says Lafon. \u201cI wrote because I liked to write, because it was my way of talking to people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think writing is very physical,\u201d explains Lafon. \u201cSo, for me with dancing you are in front of yourself, so what you see in the mirror is exactly how you are, it\u2019s not better it\u2019s not worse. It\u2019s the same way with writing. It\u2019s humiliating in a very good way; it keeps you in reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her most recent novel, The Little Communist Who Never Smiled, is the fourth she has published. Combining themes of politics, capitalism, and feminism, this fictionalized account of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci ties together Lafon\u2019s writing prowess with her several social and political collectives, especially feminism. \u201cIn France we have this thing called la litt\u00e9rature feminine, or woman\u2019s writing,\u201d details Lafon. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I like this because that would mean that, if you had to add \u2018woman\u2019, writing is \u2018man\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure that I was going to do this novel, and then I saw this French newspaper who wrote about [Comaneci] when she was eighteen\u2026 [the author] said \u2018the little girl became a woman. Verdict? The magic is off.\u2019\u201d The use of the word verdict here strongly impacted Lafon, as she re-imagines Comaneci\u2019s childhood under scrupulous investigation. \u201cWhen I read this, I knew I had my novel, because for me the subject is this trial, made on women\u2019s bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In The Little Communist Who Never Smiled, a critique on perfectionism, Lafon skillfully blends together fact and fiction. While the names, dates, and events of The Little Communist may be true, Lafon explains that her writing mixes the historical with the creative. \u201cI don\u2019t write my life,\u201d says Lafon. \u201cI believe in imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>-Toria Rainey \u201818<\/p>\n<p>Watch this event on YouTube!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"710\" height=\"471\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QL-ip-7H9tE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday October 27th, The Pardee School of Global Studies\u2019 Center for the Study of Europe partnered with the Association Francophone de Boston University to bring French author Lola Lafon to Boston University. The conversation with the author was moderated by AFBU Faculty Advisor Liliane Dus\u00e9woir, Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in French [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8908,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[320,213,328],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8384"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9467,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8384\/revisions\/9467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/european\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}