THEODOR KALLIFATIDES, JHUMPA LAHIRI & BASHKIM SHEHU + IÑAKI ESTEBAN / “The circular journey”

“The circular journey: return to the mother tongue” conversation between Theodor Kallifatides e Iñaki Esteban in Gutun Zuria Bilbao.
These are two texts in which the original language and the conquered language lay out the various clashes between the starting point and the destination. Two literary worlds that are full of places and, at the same time, do not belong anywhere. Two ways to return to your mother tongue after contaminating yourself and other worlds until arriving at a text with the grammar of the future.
After a long career as a writer in Swedish, Kallifatides got writer’s block, which he could only overcome by returning to Greek, his mother tongue. Meanwhile, Sehu, the translator of Hannah Arendt and Roberto Bolaño, always remained faithful to his language of origin, i.e. Albanian, despite residing in Barcelona since the 90s.