Visions from New York for Swiss writer Blaise Hofmann
New York. Blaise Hofmann (photo Jarin Blaschke) is a constant traveler. The 29-year old Swiss author from Lausanne, Switzerland has written two books about his travels: Billet aller simple (”One-way ticket”, published in 2004) takes place in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, where he spent numerous months on the road between 2001 and 2003. Estive (published in 2007) is a different kind of travel taking place in the heart of Switzerland. During the Summer of 2005, Blaise Hofmann was a shepherd in the Swiss Alps and Estive is the story of this experience. On October 19 2007, the young author was invited in New York to read in French a few excerpts from his books. “It is a little bit strange for me, he told the audience before starting the reading. It is like a travel. I know where I start but I do not know where we are going to be in a few minutes”. As Blaise Hofmann was reading a chapter about his experience in a movie theater Afghanistan in 2002, the Upper East Side and the residence overlooking the East River in the Upper East Side slowly began to drift away. After the stop in Afghanistan, the Swiss author took his audience to the Longrain Valley in Switzerland, where he spent months as a shepherd. He told them about the toillet, the “Swiss version” of the stupid man. He talked about sheep and about the long days spent in the middle of nowhere. The following day, Blaise Hofmann was in a café in Brooklyn. He spoke with the the.point.is news agency about his experience in the Ledig House, a residence for writers in Hudson, a town in upstate New York. He spent a month there with other authors from around the world. “There was an Australian poet, a Brazilian novelist, a German journalist and a French interpret”, M. Hofmann said. There was only one condition: the 10 writers had to share the dinner. “It was very strange, M. Hofmann added. We were far from everything and we could have been anywhere else in the world. This experience of leaving the society and your usual environment behind was the most interesting”. M. Hofmann took advantage of this seclusion to finish his third book, a novel. The Swiss author, who defines his approach to writing as “anti-Baudelaire”, will leave Big Apple on October 22. “I like the phrase: New York is the only place in the world where I don’t feel like a foreigner, he concluded. I could not write about this place without living in it. But if I had to do it now, I think I would write about gang members from Harlem walking their puddles in Central Park”. A powerful and yet strange image from a travel that will take Blaise Hofmann to Egypt and Algeria next year. A French version of this story was published on October 22 2007 in 24 heures in Switzerland. CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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