Art, Fiction and Film

SUPPORTED BY:

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES CELEBRATE THE VOICES OF TOMORROW.

ART, GARETH NYANDORO FICTION, EKA KURNIAWAN FILM, CLARISSA CAMPOLINA Africa and the Middle East Asia-Pacific Latin America

Their work speaks of stigma and struggle. Of identity and belonging. Of obstacles and optimism. Their work challenges us to listen with new ears. And look at the world with new eyes.

Join OppenheimerFunds and the Financial Times in celebrating the 2016 Emerging Voices winners. Let’s honor all the writers, filmmakers and artists in emerging markets who give voice to their truth.

For more information about the Emerging Voices Awards, visit emergingvoicesawards.com and join the conversation.

©2016 OppenheimerFunds Distributor, Inc. CAMPOLINA FOREWORD /CONTENTS

1 Jan Dalleyand Editor Michael Skapinker Cordelia Jenkins 2 Production editor Elif Shafak and Sunil Khilnani George Kyriakos Artdirector KostyaPenkov Pictureeditors Michael Crabtree, Alan Knox ‘THESE AWARDS Designer Harriet Thorne Subeditor HAVE SURVIVED Philip Parrish Special reports editor THEIRINFANCY.WE Leyla Boulton Global advertising sales and strategy director LOOK FORWARD Dominic Good Commercial director Alexis Jarman TO WATCHING Advertising production Daniel Lesar THEM GROW’ CONTRIBUTORS 1. Ben Bland FT South China correspondent Rose Carr Freelance he judging panel for our second FT/ journalist OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices awards JanDalley agreed on twothings. First, while this year’s FT arts editor winners and runners-up were, as 2015’s, Lucy Hornby outstanding, the overall standard of entries Twas higher.Second, it was easier for the FT deputy bureau chief,Beijing judges to agree on the bestentries this year.Intheir FaizaSultan Khan second year,the awards are better known and even more Editor,BloomsburyIndia talented artists entered them. Also the judges, several AmyKazmin FT south of whom also served lastyear,had abetter idea of what Asia bureau chief theywere looking for. Simeon Kerr FT Gulf As the Emerging Voices awards become better correspondent established, it is worth reiterating their purpose for Nilufer Kuyas Novelist those newtothem. Justin Leverenz, director of emerging JoeLeahy FT Brazil market equities at OppenheimerFunds, approached bureau chief the Financial Times with the idea for aset of awards John Paul Rathbone for artfrom emerging marketsin2014. To the FT,the FT Latin Americaeditor proposal was immediately attractive. Wehave spent Heba Saleh FT Cairo years reporting on and writing about the world’s rising correspondent economies, looking at their businesses, financial systems Andres Schipani FT and governments. Andescorrespondent These awards offered away to probe more deeply —tolearn more about these countries through their TomSeymour 2. Freelance journalist art, film and literature. We sawthe awards as not only Kamila Shamshie away of recognising talented artists, film-makers and Novelist novelists, but also as ameans of bringing their work coming talents, but others are already well known in ErikaSolomon to the attention of our readers. This year we asked for their own countries and regions. FT Middle East artentries from Africa and the Middle East, films from Thejudgesfor thefilm categorythis year —who correspondent Latin America and novels from the Asia-Pacific region. included Yuhang Ho,the Malaysian director who won Catrina Stewart We received 797 entries. lastyear’s film award —were impressed with Tania Freelance journalist Aquestion often asked about the Emerging Voices CattebekefromParaguayand her film Olia,the storyof Stephen Woodman awards is: which is emerging, the artistorthe country? aboy looked after by amute neighbour while his mother Freelance journalist Theanswer is the country. Those eligible to enter the is at work. They described it as “haunting, layered, very awards are citizens of nations named by the World Bank effective”.Theywere captivated by Camilo Restrepo’s

Coverphotography as having agross national income per capita of $12,746 Impressions of aWar,which theycalled a“painterly, NA GORDON Mohau Modisakeng or less. Thejudges’ instructions were straightforward: personal” viewofColombia’s50-year armed conflict. S: AN

Courtesy Tyburn choose the bestworks submitted in each category. Some But their winner was Clarissa Campolina of Brazil with TO Gallery of our winners and runners-up are exciting up-and- Solon,anenigmatic film thatimagines an alternative PHO

4 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES Contents 6 Introduction Artinanage of conflict. By Kamila Shamsie

ART 16 Dubai An unlikely havenfor Middle Eastern artists 18 Egypt Arab spring graffitists efar inding newoutlets 20 SouthAfrica Memoriesofapost-apartheid murder 23 Opinion Jan Dalleyonnationality and cultural expression 24 Kenya Nairobi’svibrant market points to aboom beginning of the world, thatthe judges commended as WINNERS FICTION “enchanting”, “poetic” and displaying “greatmuscularity”. Of the artentries, the judges were impressed by Noor Abuarafeh’s deeply researched mixed-media exploration 12 30 Indonesia of Palestinian history. They were enthusiastic about Art Africa and the Abrutal historyisbrought to global attention Kenyan-German artistSyowia Kyambi’spersonal Middle East installation-performance entry. But their winner was Winner Gareth 32 India Gareth Nyandoro of Zimbabwe, with his strikingly Nyandoro, Zimbabwe Runners-up Noor Regional languagesbreak English dominance coloured paper-mounted-on-canvasworks. Abuarafeh, Jordan, Thefiction entries demonstrated the virtues of range Syowia Kyambi,Kenya across avastregion, with the 10 longlisted works coming 35 Pakistan from Bangladesh, Indonesia, China, India and Turkey. Faiza SKhanonnew commercial fiction writers Four of the 10 had originally been written in English; 26 the remainder had been published over the pastyear in Fiction Asia-Pacific 36 Turkey English translations. Winner ManTiger by EkaKurniawan, Nilufer Kuyasnavigates turbulent times Thejudges chose twoChinese books as runners-up: Indonesia The Seventh Day by Yu Huaand The Four Books by Runners-up Yan Lianke. Theyare both remarkable works, highly The Seventh Day 38 China recommended to anyone who wants an insight into by Yu Hua, China, The silencing of influential liberal voices contemporaryChina and its modern history. The The Four Books by YanLianke, China narrator of The Seventh Day is ayoung man who has FILM died and who, being too poor to afford aburial plot, wanders the countrywith similarly afflicted souls. 42 The Four Books,set in alabour and re-education Film Latin America 46 Cuba camp at the time of China’sGreatLeap Forward, is a and the Caribbean Thrillsand pitfalls from Hollywoodcash Winner Solon by lacerating account of the lies, cruelties and absurdities Clarissa Campolina, of life in captivity. Brazil 50 Colombia Thewinning novel was the distinguished Indonesian Runners-up Footprints of afivedecade-long civil war author Eka Kurniawan’s ManTiger.The storyofayoung Olia by Tania man who has asupernatural female white tiger within Cattebeke, Paraguay, Impressions of aWar himself was called “Marquez-like” by the judges, who had by Camilo Restrepo, 52 Mexico particular praise for the translator,Labodalih Sembiring. Colombia Directorsare setting focus on the US border After their firsttwo years, the awards have survived their infancyingood health. We look forward to 54 Brazil watching them grow. Daniel Ribeiro’sexplorations of love Michael Skapinker FT chair of judges 56 Thejudges

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 5 INTRODUCTION

Taking flight People reach the Tunisia border after fleeing Libya during fighting in 2011 ART IN AN AGE OF CONFLICT In history’s ugly moments —war, censorship,oppression,political turmoil—artists arecompelled to bear witnessand breakthe silence. By Kamila Shamsie

istory, both pastand ongoing, has always exerted aparticular pull on the artistin search of asubject. “Whathappened here? Whatishappening here?” the artistasks when entering aroom, anation, apolitical Hcurrent. If the question hasn’t already been answered, or if no one seems to want to answer it — particularly if someone seems determined not to have it asked, letalone answered —the artist’santenna rises. There is astoryhere. And down the rabbit-hole they go,encountering realities thatengender demands and provokemore questions. In the ugly moments of history—times of conflict, war,oppression or censorship —two questions are provoked, over and over: whatisgood artinsuch times? And whatgood is artinresponse to such times? Artistic form is astarting point to answering the firstquestion.Photographers are, by almostuniversal agreement, the mostpowerfulartists of the ongoing. They makethe world “see” whatishappening in other nations, other neighbourhoods, and theyimplicitly ask the question: now thatyou have seen, whatare you going to do about it? Graffiti artists yalpla ess heralded, but nonetheless significant, role —marking streets as belonging to artrather than tanks, to the people rather than their oppressors. And poets, particularly in parts of the world thatretain traditions of turning poetryinto song, can give apeople their anthems of resistance and their ballads of sorrow.Ofcourse, no artform is in service of one kind of politics only; militaristic songs, hate-filled graffiti and triumphalistimages are also produced

TOS during conflict. Iwill never forget sitting in London with the writer Hisham Matar in the early days of the Libyan revolution, NUM PHO

AG watching footageonhis laptop of thousands of people

/M in Benghazi, standing together singing apoem, which Matar and his mother sang along with them, GRIN LE PEL

LO IF SOMEONE SEEMSDETERMINED AO

:P NOTTOHAVE AQUESTIONASKED, TO

PHO THEARTIST’SANTENNARISES

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 7 INTRODUCTION

thousands of miles away.Iassumed it was an old song, Facesofarevolution aLibyan equivalent to Pakistan’s “Hum Dakhain Gay” LauraEl-TantawyisanEgyptian photographer (WeWill See), which was firstwritten by the poetFaiz broughtupinthe UK,Saudi Arabia, Egyptand the US.Her firstbook of photography, In the Shadow Ahmed Faiz in 1979 during the militarydictatorship of of the Pyramids,afirst-person accountexploring Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and was later adopted as the memoryand identity against the backdrop anthem to the successful protests againstthe military of Egypt’spolitical turmoil from 2005 to 2014, government of Pervez Musharraf in 2007.But no, Matar wasnominated forthe Deutsche Börse told me, the poem had been written justdaysearlier and PhotographyFoundation Prize2016 everyone already knewitbyheart. Other forms such as novels or films simply need a different time span to be produced. Ahdaf Soueif,the Egyptian novelistand columnist, spokein2014ofthe fine poems ththa ad been written during the Egyptian revolution of 2011. In contrast, she said thatworks of fiction about tctha onflicthad “not ripened”yet. Soueif added that, as the times and truths were becoming murkier and more layered, she was finding it harder to whittle her analyses down to anewspaper column, and that no matter if it leads them down the darkestofpaths. perhaps the bestway to engagewas “in amore imaginative But whybear witness? Whywalk those paths and take way”,via anovel. She spokeofthis prospectas“thathorrible others along with you? Theeasiestanswer is: to deny plunge, thathorrible risk” —the horribleness and riskiness those responsible the glorious places in posteritythat being embodied not by the response anovel might receive theycrave. But it isn’t,itshouldn’t be, about them. The from those on the other side of historybut from afailure to mostoft-repeated answer is Spanish philosopher George achieve the high artistic demands necessarytoconveying Santayana’saphorism: “Those who cannot remember the such complextruths. pastare condemned to repeatit.”But surely we are past Weightysubjectmatter does not lighten the demands believing thatitisonly forgetfulness thatcan makeus of craft; it increases them. If you doubt this, go and look repeatour worstactions? If 71 years after Hiroshima and at Picasso’s painting “Guernica” for awhile, even at a Nagasaki, the newprime minister of the UK can assure screen-sized reproduction. Perhaps the answer to the the nation of her willingness to use nuclear bombs, at the question “Whatisgood artinsuch times?” proves itself costofhundreds of thousands of lives, whatbusinessdo unchanged by the removal of the lastthree words. we have pretending there is anythreshold of horror that Thethornier question, then, is “Whatgood is art humanityisnot willing to cross more than once? in response to such times?” Can artstop massacres, Here is another wayoflooking at the question. What overthrow dictators, remove hatred from the world? is the costofcontinued silence?How do you measure the Patently not. “Guernica” was painted in 1937 but crime of failing to acknowledgethose who resisted, those did nothing to temper,let alone prevent, the aerial who were lost, those who still live with the wounds? bombardments of the second world war. Youwrite or paintorsing their stories in order to give Some artcan be produced in the eyeofthe storm, those people voices again, to give them back aplace in a but it does not affectthe raging of the storm in any historythatwants them erased. That is where you start decisive way. Theagents in control of the narrative —and in doing thatyou might discover something easily during anytime of strife are never the artists. When forgotten in the midstofhistory’sterrible repetitions and athreattoanation or tribe or ideologyisidentified it the gathering clamour of hate-filled voices: grace. brings with it the widespread beliefthat“decisive action” Because, there are always those who resist, those who and “unityofpurpose” is called for,rather than the remember,those who believe the world could be better representations of nuance and complexitywith which and whose braveryshames us for giving in to the apathyof artists are often more comfortable. pessimism. When we bear witness to horror we also bear But justbecause artcannot stop astorm from raging witness to resistance. We give thelie to those who claimno doesn’t mean it is powerless to alter the experience of one can be held responsible for certain attitudes or actions being trapped by the storm. Recently,inBosnia, Iheard because theyare universal. Sometimes, shattering the myth theretired armygeneral JovanDivjak talk about the that“everyone” is complicit is the startofaconversation role cultureplayed during the siegeofSarajevo in the about the ways of complicity, the costofresistance, the early 1990s. Concerts and plays were performed by path to justice and the nature of humanityitself. candlelight, artexhibitions honoured those who had TheItalian novelistItalo Calvino said it best: “The died; artreminded people of humanity, he said, and inferno of the living is not something thatwill be; if there kept their spirits strong. is one, it is whatisalready here, the inferno where we In the end,historyoutlives its actors and theiracts, and live everyday,thatweform by being together.There are this maybewhere the mostimportant role of the artist twowaystoescape suffering it. Thefirstiseasy for many: comes in. In an essaythatconsidered the artist’srole in accept the inferno and become such apartofitthatyou bearing witness, Nadine Gordimer,the South African can no longer see it. Thesecond is riskyand demands writer and political activist, wrote: “Writers cannot constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to indulgethe hubris of believing theycan plant the flag of recognise who and what, in the midstofinferno, are not truth on ineluctable territory. But we can exclude nothing inferno, then makethem endure, give them space.” in our solitarytravail towards meaning.”That“solitary travail” is not the work of those who want to control a Kamila Shamsie’s novel Burnt Shadowswas shortlisted narrative but of those who are determined to follow one, for the OrangePrizefor Fiction

8 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 9

ART AFRICA /MIDDLEEAST ‘I TRYTO RECREATE SITUATIONS THATPEOPLE DON’TSEE AS IMPORTANT’ Gareth Nyandoro,winner, Emerging Voices ArtAward

By Rose Carr

hile Gareth Nyandoro’s vivid, abstract depictions of commercial life in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, have earned him international recognition, the response of his local audience Wremains paramount to the artist. His canvases depictthe ephemeraofeverydaylife—apair of shoes, abicycle, arail of clothes —objects so familiar thattheyhavebecomevirtually invisible. “I tryto recreate situations thatpeople don’t see as important,”he says. “I want to show them whattheyare missing.” Beneath the swirling chaos of Harare’s markets, his work evokes humdrum human interactions. Discernible figures dance in and out of viewamid the frenetic compositions. “Heisakeen observer of human

behaviour,” says Maria Varnava,co-director of Tiwani PESKI OKEREKE

Contemporary, aLondon gallerythatrepresents KU

international emerging and established artists. KA “The arrangement of objects Ifind on the street ME :E

[in Harare] is an artwork in itself,” Nyandoro says. TO “[The traders] are veryconscious of how they PHO

12 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES

ART AFRICA /MIDDLEEAST ALAMY S/ EMI :H TO PHO

arrangetheir stalls and the objects on them. It’s very sometimes working from stills taken from online videos. Market forces artistic for me.” “Facebook is aplace to interact. Itbecomes likeasmall Gareth Nyandoro’s Born in 1982, Nyandoro graduated with adiploma kind villagefor me,”hesays. work evokes humdrum human in fine artfrom Harare Polytechnic in 2003 and But whatdistinguishes Nyandoro from his interactions amid completed his studies in creative artand design at contemporaries is his process. Behind the blocks of bold the frenetic natureof Chinhoyi UniversityofTechnology, Zimbabwe, in 2008. primarycolour and expressive monochrome figures is an Harare’sstreet life With aresidencyatthe Rijksakademie vanBeeldende intricate, laboured form of craftsmanship. Aprintmaker Kunsten in Amsterdam and asold-out solo show at by education, Nyandoro developed his distinctive style Tiwani Contemporaryalready under his belt, his name in partasaresult of ascarcityofmaterials. “When is becoming well known. He recently represented Imajored we didn’t have conventional materials for his countryinthe 56th Venice Bienniale and is busy etching, linocut or silk-screen printing, so we were preparing asolo show at Cape Town’s SMACgallery. justimprovising, sometimes cutting into paper to “Heispartofageneration of exciting young artists, makeprints,”hesays. “But when Iwas experimenting, likeVirginia Chihota and Portia Zvavahera, who are Irealised the plate Iwas using to print was actually a bringing Zimbabwe to the forefront,”saysVarnava. finished piece of work itself.” Nyandoro agrees: “There is alot of stuffhappening This makeshiftapproach led to the development of an here because of the economic hardship —people are expressive style of printmaking, incorporating elements of making really important work. Zimbabwe is booming drawing, etching, painting, weaving and collage. Dubbing with creativity.” his technique “Kuchekacheka” — cheka means to cut Thecountry’schequered economic pastincludes in Shona, anative Bantu language—Nyandoro slices severe bouts of hyperinflation, recession and, following paper cutouts with blades, painstakingly scratching out President RobertMugabe’s unsuccessful land reforms an imageand stripping away layers of paper,the scraps in 2001, afull-blown economic collapse. But despite of which are later incorporated back into the painting. ongoing deprivation —orperhaps because of it —a He then fills the incisions with inktb tha leeds across the nascent artscene has emerged. “There’s not much canvas. Theprocess allows the artisttocreateimages that supportfor the arts from the government, so people are look likeetchings but can be made on alarger scale. “I try creating work out of their own pockets,”Nyandoro says. to connectmywork to its surroundings. It becomes partof Zimbabwe looms largeinNyandoro’s work, though the environment,”hesays. the countryisrarely explicitly referenced. “Itisvery Thework Nyandoro is preparing for his Cape Town difficult for me to paint other things,”hesays. While show takes inspiration from the makeshiftbillboards in Amsterdam, he kept being drawnbackhome. “I in Zimbabwe. “Signposts are akind of artwork thatthe was looking for things from Zimbabwe even though locals read,”hesays. “I recreate thatbecauseitispopular Iwas far away,” he says. “I was kind of in between and familiar to the local people, so when theycome into the spaces.”Keeping intouch through Facebook and the space it relates to them easily.It’sall about people YouTube, he trawled the internetfor inspiration, trying to makeemployment for themselves.”

14 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES NoorAbuarafeh, runner-up

Palestinian artist Noor Abuarafeh turned to artafter the upheavals of the Second Intifada —the period of intensified Israeli-Palestinian violence between 2000 and 2005 —forced her to drop out of lawschool. Growing up in the region (“wherehistoryhas manylayers to it”) stimulated an interest in the mutable and contestednatureofhistory. “My interest came from agrowing consciousness that historical narratives arenot given, but rather produced in partbyanongoing engagement with institutions likearchives,” she says. Using amixtureofpublic and privatearchival material and by repurposing oral stories, blogs, photographs and books, Abuarafeh’s work explores fragmented interactions between memory, historyand identity.“Iaminterestedinhistoryasa concept, and the possibility of rewriting it,”she says. Her work adopts the novelist’sskill of weaving together fact and fiction, unearthing lost historical accounts and reworking narratives to offer wane ccounts of history. In one piece, “Observational DesireonaMemorythatRemains”, she searches foraman in aphotographand, in abid to build apictureofhis life, juxtaposesrealand imagined narratives,aswell as laying bareher ownprocess of investigation, which becomesa central element in the piece.“Ideveloped my method of looking intothe past by digging intohistory, searching for forgottenevents, or taking testimoniesfrompeople who experienced aparticular event,”she says. “Thisprocess makes me combine the ideaofastoryteller and ahistorian.” 1. Rose Carr Syowia Kyambi, runner-up

Multimedia artist Syowia Kyambi graduated in 2002 from the ArtInstituteofChicago and, afterfiveyears in theUS city,returned to Kenyain2003.She is of mixed Kenyan and German descent, and her work focusesonidentity and the components that construct it. “I explorepersonal relationships and cultural identities, linking them to issuesofloss, longing, race and morerecently,questioning women’s rolesinsociety,” she says. Her work oftenevokesaprofound sense of dislocation that is partly rooted in her dual heritage and, by extension, the process of decolonisation in Kenya. “The connection between the collectiveself and the individual self and the psychology of post-colonialism represented in our daily lives interests me,” she says. Forher multimedia production “Between Us”, which incorporates performance,installation, photography, sculpture and video,she joins forces with choreographer JamesMweu and dancersfromKunja Dance Theatretoexamine social norms and perceptions about the body and gender.The 1. production is partofatravelling installation that wasfirst Noor Abuarafeh is interested in historyas performed in Nairobi in 2014,then in London and Dresden this aconcept and the year. possibility of rewriting it “Thereare repetitiveelements used within the performance 2. installations. However, each production has its ownspecific Syowia Kyambi’s work narrativesituated within the contextofthe city in which the oftenevokesdislocation, work is being presented,”Kyambi says. partly rooted in her 2. dual heritage Rose Carr

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 15 ART DUBAI AHAVEN IN TURMOIL

Dubaihas becomean unlikely refuge formany artistsfromthe tumult of theMiddleEast. By Simeon Kerr

ubai’stransformation over the past100 inflating property prices and filling the city’s hotels. yearsfrom sleepy villagetobustling trading Meanwhile, second-generation expatriates born or raised entrepot to global metropolis was achieved in the UAEtonon-Emiratiparents, such as Dubai-raised in partbycreating atax-free environment to Chinese multimedia practitioner Lantian Xie, have been attractPersian traders across the Gulf.The making anamefor themselves. Dcityhas since drawninvibrant Arab and “Anunfortunate realityisthataspolitical, economic Asian expatriate communities, lured by its connectivity, and social issues affectthe wider region, more people political stabilityand economic freedom. flock to the UAEasaplace of refuge, to raise afamily At the startofthis century, an equally dramatic and find employment,”saysMyrna Ayad, director of transformation began in Dubai’sart scene. Artists ArtDubai, an annual fair thathas run since 2006. “For from all over the Middle East, fleeing war,violenceand an artist, Dubai provides adiverse network of patrons, persecution, have arrived in the emirate. “Dubai has collectors and gallerists. It’s ascene thatoffersthem become asafe haven for the intellectuals and creatives of asolid international stagefrom which to successfully the region,”saysManal Al Dowayan, aSaudi artistwhose launch their careers.”The scene, she adds, has created installations often have afeministbent. “Asanartist programmes and spaces, such as Tashkeel, an artists’ living here, Ihaveaccess to agrowing andexciting art studios complex, thatare attractive for regional artists. scene thatissupported and protected by the community.” Elsewhere in the UAE, institutions such as the Sheikha Thecultural influences on this communityare Salama Foundation of Abu Dhabi offer education and diverse: in the 1970s Palestinian-born painter Youssef residencies, while the SharjahArt Foundation supports Dweik came to Dubai; the late Iraqi artistIsmail Fattah artists through its biennial. worked in the United Arab Emirates following the US- Renowned Syrian artists have also moved to Dubai, ALLERY led invasion of Iraq in 2003; the brothers Rokni and including painters Safwan Dahoul and Tammam Azzam. MG

Ramin Haerizadeh, known for their arresting paintings Azzam, 36, came to Dubai from Damascus in 2011 AYYA

and installations, entered self-imposed exile from their OF native Iran in 2009; and Tunisian “calligraffiti” star SY eL Seed has setupastudio in the city. ARTISTSHAVETOCAREFULLY More recently,the tumult of the Arab spring has OURTE NEGOTIATETHE REDLINES OF :C

driven people, businesses and moneyfromtroubled TO states such as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria to Dubai,

ACCEPTED EXPRESSION IN DUBAI PHO

16 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES Back in Baghdad: thepullofhome

Not all artists who come from troubled parts of the Middle East have chosen to leavetheir homeland. Qassim Sabti, 63,owner of HewarArt Galleryin Baghdad, has stayedthroughout Iraq’s crippling international sanctions, the US occupation and, since then, the sectarian violence he describesas“the most dangerous thing acountrycan go through”. He says he has received death threats three timessince2005. Despitethat, the Iraqi artist has enjoyed considerable success at home and abroad, most notably foraseriesemploying the tatteredremnants of booksthat were burned or destroyedinthe looting afterBaghdad’sfall to US forces in 2003.“At Hewar we’vedone 280exhibitions, not just of visual artbut of poetryaswell. My success would not have happened without Baghdad. I’mason of Baghdad —thisis whereall my memoriesare,” he says. Sabti says he also feels amoral dutytostay, despitereceiving reports about relatives killedin Anbar and Diyala provinces, whereIraqi forces have been fighting to push back Isis. “I tell artists herethat insteadofraising our weapons, our job is to raise our culture,”hesays. “Theycreatedeath,but we create life. We areinadramatic and essential struggle.” Still, Sabti admits that the pull to leavecan be strong. Even his 24-year-old son, agraphic artist, dreams of moving abroad. Sabti has held several exhibitions in NewYork,Paris and Tokyo. He has organised exhibitions forIraqi artists in Beirut and Paris, and is planning another seriesofshows around the region. Dubai, he says, is becoming an increasingly important regional hub.“We can call it one of the capitals of creativity in the Arab world On the frontline along with his gallery, Ayyam, which transferred its and it deservestobeaculturalcapital,”hesays. Tammam Azzam’s operations to the Gulf as the civil war intensified back “I extend my hand to this city.” ‘Wallpaper’(2015), home. “I spent four years in Dubai from 2011. Iwent Formost artists who have stayed in Iraq, however, aphotomontage depicting the there because it is asafe place,”saysAzzam, who works living off their artisnearlyimpossible.Mosthave destruction caused as agraphic designer as well as afine artist. Thenature second jobs —fromworking as civil servants to by the warinSyria of his work, which describes the destruction of the war driving taxis —saysIraqi-German artist FuratJamil, and supports the populistrevolt, means he cannot return who is also director of the Ruya Foundation for to Syria, he says. “Some of my work is political —Ihave ContemporaryCultureinIraq. Jamil, who focuseson been supporting the revolution since the firstmoments.” film-making, movedtoIraqasateenager and says she But while Dubai offers political safety,itisanunlikely choosestoremain in Baghdad despitethe violence. haven in other respects. Freedom of expressionthere “It’sveryhardtomakealiving. It would be easier in has been curtailed since the Arab spring raised tensions Berlin —but I’dmiss the inspiration.” over political freedom and sectarianism in the Middle One of Jamil’sforthcoming pieceswas inspired East. Artists work in asometimes strained atmosphere, by the remains of aKoran she found at the siteofa carefully negotiating the red lines of accepted expression truck bomb explosion this July that ripped through in the city’sburgeoning galleryscene and at ArtDubai. Baghdad’sbustling Karrada district, killing nearly In the absence of work visas, artists obtain residence 300 people.She believes the Iraqi artists who stay visas at the invitation of agalleryorEmiratinational. also playacritical role in preventing arich, ancient Artists from countries afflicted by Arab spring violence heritage from being ravaged by violence and sayitisincreasingly difficult to secure such papers. The western cultural hegemony. Sherecently made a authorities are concerned about importing revolutionary 3D animated film that revives the storyofSulawa, a zeal thatmight undermine the Gulf’s stability. beautiful demon creaturethatharksback to ancient Azzam left Dubai for Germanytotakeupafellowship Sumerian cultureand that Jamil believesinspired on an academic arts programme, in partbecausethe Europe’s vampiretales. countryoffered longer-term stabilityfor aforeigner.His She estimates that half of Iraq’s younger generation UAEvisa only allowed for visits from his parents, not his of artists do leave butthat manyofthemend up siblings, and there was no chance of naturalisation in returning. “After the novelty has faded, manyofthem Dubai. He says if he had losthis contractwith the gallery, find that something is missing.” he wouldhavehad to leave the countrywithin amonth. ErikaSolomon

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 17 ART EGYPT AFTERTHE REVOLUTION Thegraffiti artofthe Arab spring may have gone,but Egypt’sstreetartists are findingnew outletsaroundthe world forcreativedissent.ByHebaSaleh

oart form has expressed the exuberance 1. of feelings unleashed by Egypt’s 2011 revolution as vividly as graffiti. As central Cairo became the scene of protests and clashes between police and demonstrators Nduring the turbulent firsttwo years after the uprising, streetart splashed on the city’sdrabwalls offered apowerfulcommentaryonthe unfolding events. Theart took diverse forms, from large, colourful murals to small, monochrome stencils and scribbled slogans that boldly celebrated “martyrs” felled by police bullets. The artists all mocked the country’sinterim militaryrulers and exposed hypocrisy and deceit in the media and politics. Theblood, hope, anger and pain of those days took shape on the walls in an explosion of creativitythatcaptured both local and international attention. 2. That moment has long passed, the walls have been painted over and drawing messages of defiance on the streets has become too riskyfor the young artists who made their names during the revolution. Space for public 3. dissent has shrunk since the widely supported coup in 2013 thatousted an elected Islamistpresident. But while thatera of Egyptian graffiti artappears to have ended, its impactlives on. It has helped establish the reputations of some artists at leastand opened the door to international recognition. Sorayaal-Morayef,who has chronicled the rise of Egyptian graffiti in her artblogSuzeeinthecity, says the result for individual artists has been both positive and negative. “Everyone has felt it, whether in terms of career,fame or even achangeindirection. There have been different levels of success and also trauma, and even depression,”she says. Thesatirical artistGanzeer was among the firststreet artists to gain public recognition after the revolution. Since 2014 he has lived in LosAngeles after apresenter

on an Egyptian television programme claimed he was a RS member of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, causing TE EU

Ganzeer to fear for his safety.His mural in Cairo of a ;R face-offbetween atank and abread deliveryman on a S: AP

bicycle in May2011was an eloquent visual comment on TO the tensions thathad quickly emerged between the then PHO

18 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘I DIDNOT GO DOWN TO THESTREETS TO PAINT TO PROVETHATIAMAN ARTIST.IHADASKILL AND IUSEDITTODOCUMENT SOMETHINGIBELIEVEDIN’

the same kind of work he made in Egypt, which was tied to the revolution. “I don’t see the point of placing this work in aNew York galleryfor rich people to buy,” he says. “The work Idid was in Egypt for Egyptians.” Ammar Abo Bakr,another prolific streetartist, painted huge, expressive, richly detailed murals often depicting “martyrs” with angel wings. Hiswork packs astrong emotional punch with its vibrant colours, overlaying of motifs and use of irony. Forhim, aformer artlecturer at South ValleyUniversityinLuxor,the revolution might have suffered asetback, but it is not over and, he says, graffiti will have arole once again. “I used to draw the martyrs to point at their killers,” says Abo Bakr,speaking in his flatinthe centre of Cairo where the walls are covered with multi-layered painting, objects, symbols, insignia and calligraphycelebrating the revolution and its icons. “I did not go down to the streets to paint to prove thatIamanartist. Ihad askill and I used it to document something Ibelieved in.” These days Abo Bakr is often invited to Europe to paint in streetart events but staysawayfrom revolutionarythemes there. While abroad, though, independently he has painted murals of Sanaa Seif,a young activistwho was jailed for suggesting thatEgypt’s judiciarywas not independent. “She is an icon of the revolution,”Abo Bakr says. ruling militarycouncil and the young activists at the 4. Other graffiti artists in demand internationally include forefront of the uprising. Alaa Awad, another artlecturer from Luxor whose Ganzeer is nowworkingonThe SolarGrid,aserialised celebrated murals, inspired by Pharaonic Egypt, shared sci-fi graphic novel. He says he is seeking to create an wall space in downtown Cairo with Abo Bakr’s paintings. effectbeyond the immediate hit delivered by street Awad, who does not viewhimself as an opponent of art: “For me it was important to takeastep back from the regime, says he was moved by the violence and work thatisimmediately urgent and to put effortinto polarisation to produce work thatreminded Egyptians of something thatmight have aslowimpactover alonger their roots in an ancient civilization. Elegant, enigmatic period.” and moving, his murals reference ancient temple Hisnovel presents adystopian world setinadistant paintings while appearing to comment on the modern future in the wakeofanenvironmental catastrophe that conflicts thatunfolded on Cairo’s streets. has depleted the world’s clean water supplies. Theplanet 1. Similarly,Aya Tarek works in the portcityof depends on agrid of solar panels thatbask it in sunlight Ganzeer Alexandria and took up graffiti in 2007 long before the round the clock and have abolished night. “This is good 2. revolution. She makes apoint of underlining thather Ganzeer’s Cairomural of for production because factories can work 24 hours a aface-offbetween atank work is not political and thatshe is not a“revolutionary day, but it has horrible effects on the environment,”says and abread delivery man artist”.Having received numerous commissions in Ganzeer.“Thestoryrevolvesaround twochildren who 3. Europe and the US,including for amusic production destroy the solar grid and save the planet. But on the Ammar Abo Bakr at work house in LosAngeles and the USFContemporaryArt other hand there are the people who benefit from the near Cairo’sTahrir Square Museum in Tampa, Florida, she says the spotlight that in 2013 solar grid who you maysee as the villains. Iwanted to 4. revolution artfocused on Egypt has raised her profile. makethe point thatthere are no bad guys, only people Ganzeer’s dystopian vision “I don’t use artasapropaganda tool,”she says. “I no with different ideas of whatisgood and whatisbad.” of environmental disaster longer do graffiti. Ipaint murals. Graffiti is quick and has Ganzeer says he produces art“from time to time for a to be witty and instant. But it is adifferent approach for cause or an exhibition”but turns down offers to produce me now.Things have to move on.”

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 19 ART SOUTH AFRICA

Mohau Modisakeng ”Ga Etscho 5” (2015), courtesy of Tyburn Gallery

20 | FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES MEMORIES OF A MURDER Mohau Modisakeng’s brother was killed in the violence of early post-apartheid South Africa. Now the photographer and sculptor uses his body to describe his loss and the collective black trauma. By Tom Seymour

n 1991 Mohau Modisakeng was five years old, playing generation. His birth as an artist, he says, was directly near his home in Soweto under the care of his older linked to Sthembiso’s death. “This [happened] in the brother, Sthembiso. Their mother worked as a nurse early years after apartheid, between Mandela’s release in in the city, their father at a local school. It was a Zulu 1990 and the elections in 1994, when South Africa was settlement but was rife with unrest between various transitioning into a democracy,” he says. Itribes affiliated to rival black parties, the African In these unstable early years of the 1990s, the National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party. Bang Bang Club, a group of photojournalists who Suddenly the stutter of AK-47 fire cut through the air. followed the transition of South Africa from apartheid Modisakeng remembers his brother gathering him in to a government based on universal suffrage, were his arms and running hard. “He ran from home to home documenting the violence of the liberation struggle. until he found a tap and I remember him holding my “They produced images that have come to define face under the water, washing something from it,” says apartheid in the place I called home,” Modisakeng says. Modisakeng, now 29. “I couldn’t tell you what was being “The conflict they describe in their work was the kind of washed from my face. I can’t remember.” Later, he would violence I encountered as a child on a very regular basis. learn that the police had been firing tear gas. “I remember seeing people who had just been killed, It is the most vivid of a handful of memories their bodies still in the street. Death was part of my Modisakeng has of Sthembiso, who was murdered in every day. So when I reflect on violence today, it’s another such outburst soon after. One day, Modisakeng based on those experiences, filtered through my own found his mother holding the white sweater Sthembiso memories and emotions.” had been wearing on the day he died and noticed it had a In 2004, Modisakeng travelled to London on a school hole and a dark brown stain. Sthembiso’s death was not exchange programme. He remembers seeing the turbine talked about again. hall at Tate Modern. “There was room upon room of Today, Modisakeng still lives in Soweto, a poverty- artwork in the gallery. I had never been exposed to stricken township in Johannesburg, and has risen anything like that,” he says. “I didn’t know what it meant to become one of the leading African artists of his to be an artist. I didn’t know any other artists. But I made the decision.” At 18, Modisakeng went to study at the University of ‘I REMEMBER SEEING PEOPLE Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art. For his final project, he returned to Soweto and tried to force his WHO HAD JUST BEEN KILLED, THEIR family to talk about his brother’s death. “I had never asked BODIES STILL IN THE STREET. DEATH questions about my brother,” he says. “A detail that stuck with me was the knife that was used to kill him. I WAS PART OF MY EVERY DAY’ suddenly knew exactly what it looked like, where one

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 21 ART SOUTH AFRICA

Mohau Modisakeng could gethold of one. Ireplicatedthe knife thatkilled him ‘STHEMBISOISAPARTOFME. “Endabeni 6” until it became alarge-scale sculpture.”This sculpture, (2015) “Untitled (Okapi)”,created in 2009, is an outsized replica THAT’S WHYOUR BODIES of aknife designed to be used by tradesmen, with acarved CANHOLDSUCHPOWER, wooden handle and along blade. “Right from the start, my artwas drawing from my IF WE WANT THEM TO’ experiences of loss and trauma,”Modisakeng says. “I started to work with photographyand to put my own body into the images, layering narratives over the top of away.Modisakeng stares pastthe dove into emptiness, it. Isaw my body as away of describing my own struggle wearing animal furs and atraditional tribal dress, with loss, but also reflecting on the collective black signifying acountrymoving towards freedom but experience in South Africa and the trauma and loss that still freighted by its violent past, still in the process of is such apartofour history.” reclaiming its ancestral history. Modisakeng creates his artwork using costume, Then there are the series “Endabeni” and “Ga Etsho”, props and gestures. In arecent series “Ditaola” (2016), from 2015, on show recently at London’s Tyburn Gallery. awhite dove perches on the barrel of arifle, splayed In both, Modisakeng wears atrilby,asymbol of migrant across his shoulders. In the images, the dove is seen labour in Johannesburg. “Men would arrive from the still, then launching into flight and, finally,flying countryside to work in the mines but would fashion themselves to reflectthe imageofagentleman. It became amarker for acertain type of masculine worker during apartheid,”hesays. He wears aleather apron and horse blinkers made to fit ahuman head. “If you wear blinkers, you can’t look behind you, only forward. They symbolise the idea of being blind to history,”hesays. Modisakeng’s work engages with tribal customs and traditional beliefs, arecognition of the influence of his mother.“Ilearnt alot about my countryfrommy mother’s experiences. She would go to work as anurse in the morning and come back late at night. On the trains she took to the city, theywould hold makeshift church services. These churches took on apolitical tone, and became spaces for people to exchangeideas —mostly through song. She would come home still singing these struggle songs.” Modisakeng’s rise as an artisthas been steady.After graduation, he won an artist-in-residencygrant at the Gyeonggi Creation Center in South Korea. In 2011, he won the Sasol NewSignatures award for emerging artists and has since exhibited his work at the Volta artfair in NewYork, London’s Saatchi Gallery, the 2012 Dakar Biennale, Focus11inBasel and the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town. He has also been invited to study for a masters in fine arts at Columbia UniversityinNew York but has had to defer this year,hesays, because he cannot afford the travel costs. So, for now,Modisakeng remains in Soweto, still mining the collective experiences of apartheid in acountrythatisstill defined, he insists, by white supremacy. And still meditating on his brother’s death. “Sthembiso is amemoryImustlive with, so the only waytotry and resolve his death is to reflectonit. He is apartofme, and that’swhy our bodies can hold such power,ifwewant them to.” OPINION ART

Pre-modernistartists took aquite different viewof ‘THE MOREWE national art. Through the 19th centurypainting was often used to bolster national identity, especially at times of change: think of the artists of the Hudson River STUDYTHE School, who helped to create the romance and mythology of the American West,orEugène Delacroix in France after1830, or,more infamously,art in Russia after 1917. This sortofthing could hardly be further from the LINKSBETWEEN minds of today’sartists. Thelastcenturysaw the growing dominance of abstraction, surely the greatestanti- NATIONALITY national genre. Although everyartist’seyes are attuned by whattheyhaveseen around them —the indelible imprint of “home” —justabout all are powerfully influenced by the modernistaesthetic and the ways in ANDCULTURAL which it has dissolved and transcended national borders, even as it has changed its face in each cultural landscape. Many artists todayplaywith precisely thatdynamic: EXPRESSION, the Ghanaian El Ana tance, crea tsui, for ins tes giant, fluid hangings tetha voke the weaving traditions of his THEMORE homeland but are composed of the modern world’s detritus: tin cans, scrap and bottle caps. Those eloquent little objects, born in the 1890s at the same moment as modern artitself,embody the modernistubiquitythat TENUOUSTHEY makes one culturespeak to another. While mostleading artists I’ve spoken to liketothink APPEAR’ of their work as supranational, manynow marrythe aesthetic of abstraction with “national” elements, just as El Anatsui does. Contemporaryartists from Iran — Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, Parviz Tanavoli —often base their abstractwork on the calligraphic tradition, In today’sworld,art haslittleto while ahostofyounger Chinese practitioners are reinvestigating the long historyofink painting. do with borders, says JanDalley But I’dargue thatthis kind of involvement with pasttraditions, though essential to the deep life of the mind, has little to do with national boundaries. Quite apartfrom the enforced exile suffered by manyartists, as something happened to the idea of nationhood is often elective. Willem de Kooning was one nationality? As millions of refugees stream of the greatfigures of American abstractexpressionism, across borders and countries are torn apart but thatwas because he left his native Holland at 23 for from within by their own citizens, through NewYork. Pablo Picasso, born in Spain, decided to spend civil wars and terror attacks in the streets his adult life in France; Anish Kapoor embraced Britain. Hor even by the preposterous French burkini Many artists now divide their time between their ban this summer,itseems traditional notions of national homeland and another place thatproves more identityare in shreds. Once upon atime nationality aesthetically or politically conducive to their work. Does implied shared ways of thinking and being: is it no this prove thatnationalitymay be apointless concept longer represented by anything more than apassport? when it comes to the creative mind —wherever its As acultural clash, the burkini row was surprisingly inspirations come from? Notalways. Artists choose eloquent, with implications far beyond the causes as well as locations. Ai Weiwei, probably the best battleground of the beach. Since the burkini wearers known name in contemporaryart in China, spent some were almostall French nationals —declared outlandish years in NewYork, but elected to return home and his by their compatriots —itwas avivid displayofjust work deals powerfully and passionately with the politics how much contemporarycultural values are vested in of his country. Yethis artisinnosense“Chinese”: it takes religious, ethnic or political sensibilities, rather than its stylistic languagefrom international conceptual and in ideas of nationhood. installation art. In the fine tradition of dissident artists, As with women’s clothes, so with art: both express his nationalityisdefinitive yethis sensibilityand means of what we value, individually and collectively.The more expression rise above national considerations into the we study the links between nationalityand cultural universal realm to which all artaspires. expression in today’sworld, the more tenuous they So hereisanother wayofdefining an artist’sallegiance appear.Meanwhile, the influence of wider aesthetic and —perhaps the only one we can point to with any political beliefs on artand culturegrows stronger. certainty. To artitself,and its power.That’swhy artists Modernism, thatgreatinternationalistmovement, veryoften have adeeper connection with each other,and was devoted to the dissolution of national identity—to with those who love and value art, than with their ideas of universal sensibility, beyond depictions of reality. countrymen —whatever the colour of their passport. Originally awestern aesthetic, it also took hold across the then-free world, especially through architecture. JanDalleyisthe FT’s artseditor

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 23 ART KENYA NAIROBI’S NEWWAVE Growingappreciation foreastAfrican artabroadand avibrant domestic market sparkhopes that Kenyais on thecusp of an artboom. By Catrina Stewart

sPaul Onditi prepared to move his family back to Kenya after adecade as astruggling artistinGermany, his former artschool professor tried to dissuade him. “How can you leave your life here and go back?” the Ateacher asked. “How will you survive?” But Onditi says he was barely surviving in Europe. “I had nine years of [financial] drought. It’s winter,it’s minus 20, you can’t heatyour house, the water is cutoff, there is not enough moneytobuy food.” Six years later,Onditi, who was born in Nairobi in 1980, has made an international name for himself.But he is not the only artistfinding success at home. Some of Kenya’syounger artists are now selling works for thousands of dollars —prices thatwould have been unthinkable afew years ago. And, as appreciation grows for contemporaryKenyan art, both at home and abroad, manyhope Kenya is on the cusp of an artboom. Forty-seven works from eastAfrica went under the In adilapidated plot offapotholed road in Nairobi, hammer,two selling formore thanKs1m($10,000).At Onditi now works out of ashipping container turned lastNovember’s sale, four works beatthatprice; the most studio alongside asecuritycompanyand South Sudanese expensive piece, by Ugandan painter GeoffreyMukasa, refugees taking adult education classes. Hisdusty laptop who died in 2009, fetched Ks1.7m. “Wecouldn’t believe is surrounded by paints, brushes and ideas for future it,”saysJaroljmek. “Itwas extraordinary.” projects jotted on notepaper.“When Ilanded [back] It wasn’t justthateastAfricanart was relatively cheap, here, it was abig struggle,”hesays. “Everyone said: although it certainly is compared with more buoyant ‘When are you going back to Europe?’” marketssuch as those for Chinese or western and One day, afriend of his took six of his paintings to southern African art. Artists in Kenya “are enormously Kuona Trust, an influential Nairobi artcollective, where inventive”,saysGiles Peppiatt,anexpertinAfricanart at an Indian visitor spotted them and bought them all. Bonhams auction house in London. “Justbecause they Shortly afterwards, Onditi had ashow at the Alliance are not fetching £100,000 apicture does not mean they Française, the French cultural institution, and almost are lesser.The trouble is, everyone expectseverything to sold out. “I was like, ‘AmIinKenya?’ Whywas the follow the trajectoryofChinese contemporaryart.The countryIleft10years agoonsuchahigh, buyingart? market has cooled distinctly since those days.” It was all taking me by surprise,”hesays. Since the largely self-taught firstgeneration emerged Thecountry’sfirstmajor auction of eastAfrican art, —the “moderns”,astheyare known, working between held at Circle ArtAgencyinNairobi in 2013, was a the 1960s and 1980s —the Kenyan artscene has pivotal moment. “Wewere telling people thatartists changed dramatically.Anincreasingly liberal political [here] were doing well, and the artwas an investment,” atmosphere under president Mwai Kibaki in the 2000s says Danda Jaroljmek, the agency’sdirector.“But how led the next generation to tackle more controversial

could we saythatifthere was nowhere to sell art?” subjects, painting less to please than to provoke. ONATHAN KALAN :J

That firstauction —itisnow an annual event —drew Since then, Kenyan arthas become more challenging, TO amix of international buyers and affluent Kenyans. more abstract. Among the newfaces areBeatrice PHO

24 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘I KNOW ARTISTSWHO RUN Carol Lees, who runs Nairobi contemporaryart gallery Freshperspective One Off, believes political artsells best. “The stuffthat’s Paul Onditi, in his AWAY DON’T WANT TO BE really making its mark is political,”she says. “The big Nairobi studio, has seen demand collectors, that’swhattheyare looking for.” BRANDEDASPOLITICAL. BUT and pricesfor his One such, Samit Gehlot, aNairobi businessman whose work soar since he WHAT IS NOTPOLITICAL?’ family interests include construction and safari lodges, returned to Kenya has collected Kenyan artfor about 15 years. “When I Wanjiku, born near Nairobi in 1978, who studied at the started collecting, [global art] was not veryaffordable,” Kenyan capital’s Buruburu Institute of Fine Arts and he says. “InKenya, when Iasked the price [of an paints haunting, distorted portraits. Richard Kimathi, artwork], nobody really had anyidea whattocharge. born in 1971inNyeri, graduated from the Nairobi Kenyan artallowed me an entrée into the artmarket.” Creative ArtCentre and is regarded as one of the But Kenya still has some catching-up to do with country’smostpromising talents. Awoodcut print by Nigeria and South Africa, where wealthylocal buyers Nairobi-born Peterson Kamwathi has been bought by prop up artsales. In Kenya, where the middle class the British Museum, while the self-taught sculptor Cyrus remains small, so too is the appetite for pricier art. Some Kabiru, who fashions eyeglasses from waste material, is a 85 per cent of the works Lees sells go abroad, she says. regular fixture at international fairs. Onditi, who has exhibited in NewYork and London Increasingly,artists such as Kimathi, Kamwathi as well as westAfrica—with his mostimportant works and Michael Soi (who describes his artas“social priced at around $14,000 —saysthe importance of local commentary”)are inspired by turmoil in their own buyers cannot be overstated if “future generations are to country: corruption, the 2007-08 post-election violence bank on artasaprofession”. He warns thatKenya’stime or China’sinvestment in the continent. “You can’t in the limelight could be short-lived if locals do not come separateart from politics,”saysOnditi. “I know artists to understand the value of art. “Once the [momentum] who run away don’t want to be branded as political. But has gone, for those who have not gained an international whatisnot political?” reputation, it will be asad story.”

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 25 FICTION ASIA-PACIFIC ‘WRITERS HAVETO CHALLENGE EVERY KIND OF MORALITY OR VIRTUE’ Eka Kurniawan,winner, Emerging Voices FictionAward

By Ben Bland Photograph by Muhammad Fadli

ka Kurniawan’s writing can be brutally funny and is definitely not for the faint of heart. It has been described by another leading Indonesian author as “rape heavy”. Kurniawan’s firstbook, Beauty is aWound E(published in Indonesia in 2002), opens with its chiefprotagonist, adead prostitute, rising from the graveand contracting herself to alocal gangster. Thebook was described by the NewYorker as a “B-movie sexromp —but shot through with astrangely touching, light-hearted compassion”. It has won Kurniawan international praise and award nominations, the writer himself is unassuming. Even adecade after he had written ManTiger (2004), his second book, few in Indonesia or elsewhere seemed veryinterested in his literature and he survived by working as atelevision and film script writer. It was only in 2015 thatthe books were finally published in the US,after BenedictAnderson, apolitical scientistofSoutheastAsia, promoted Kurniawan’s work. It was only this intervention thatenabled the author to find atranslator and an all-important literary

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 27 FICTION ASIA-PACIFIC ES AG IM TY ET /G N; AFP AN NDER HEIM XA ALE S: TO PHO

agent. Now, the 40-year-old jokes, he is annoyed that Stars of the show manypeople only want to read his books “because they Indonesian titlesatthe were published in the US”. 2015 FrankfurtBook Fair,where the ‘guest Over tea at the office of his publisher in atypically of honour’—aspecial crowded partofsouth Jakarta, Kurniawan explains literary programme — whatmotivated him to startwriting and it was not the wasIndonesia prospectofcommercial success. Having graduated with aphilosophydegree in 1999, justayear after the fall of Suharto, the long-ruling dictator.Hewas emboldened by anew atmosphere of freedom. Dressed in jeans, aT-shirtand trainers, carrying a backpack made by surfbrand Billabong, Kurniawan could still pass for astudent. “Asayoung writer Ifelt I could write anything Iwanted, almostwithout risk,”he says. “If no publisher wanted it, Ididn’t care. Ithought maybe Icould just print afew copies for my friends.” While studying at Gadjah Mada universityinthe central JavacityofYogyakarta, he was influenced by the writing of Pramoedya Ananta Toer,Indonesia’spre- eminent modern author,aswell as classic works by the likes of Cervantes and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and niche local writers of martial arts and horror stories. But it was the seminal 1890 book Hunger by Norway’s Knut Hamsun and its tale of astruggling young author thatinspired Kurniawan to startwriting. “After Ifinished is being translated, aprocess in which he likes to thatnovel Iwanted to be awriter too,”hesays. participate, to ensure the English rendering faithfully Kurniawan’s fascination with dark themes is clear conveys his original text. across his work from Beauty is aWound to ManTiger, “I have more time now —Idon’t have to work every which tells of amurder committed by aman possessed week as aTVscriptwriter,” he says. “Atthe same time, I by the spirit of atiger.His third book, Love and don’t want to force myself to, for example, write anovel Vengeance,which is due to be published internationally everytwo years. It’s time to relax for awhile and maybe next year,isabout “a manwho can’t getahard-on”as travel here or there.” Kurniawan puts it. “Writers have to challengeevery kind Theinternational attention, Kurniawan says, has been of moralityorvirtue,”hesays. unexpected and he is still struggling to understand it. Despite his recent burstofsuccess, Kurniawan Bemused, he asks: “Do outsiders really need to read wants to takeabreak while Love and Vengeance anything about Indonesia?”

28 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES YanLianke,runner-up TheFourBooks

Set in aprison camp run by The Child, atyrannical infant and low-levelCommunist party official, YanLianke’s The Four Books tells the storyofagroup of dissentersastheyundergo adraconian process of re-education during the time of Chairman Mao’s GreatLeapForward. In the wall-less compound the intellectuals —known only by their former professions, The Musician, The Scholar,The Author,The Theologian and The Technician —mustcarry out tasksfor The Child beforetheycan be set free. Butwhen the weather turns, the regime abandons the prisonersand theystruggle to surviveinthe harsh conditions. By touching on the GreatChinese Famine of 1959-61, which led to thedeathsof15m people,anevent that is still heavily censored in China — The Four Books is in partadedication to these forgottendead. In dealing with such controversial subjects, however, Liankehas not alwaysmanaged to stay under the censor’s radar.Both his previous novels, Serve thePeople! (2008) and DreamofDingVillage (2011), were banned by the state. The party and the armyhavelong been targets for Lianke’ssatirical opprobrium. He joined the People’s Liberation Armyin1978and graduatedfromthe army’s ArtAcademyin1991. In Serve thePeople! afteran exhausting three-daylove affair ageneral’swifeand a 1. young solider arereduced to smashing figurinesofMao to arouse each other. 1. The Four Books is his most unbridled critique yet. Its YuaHua,runner-up YuaHua, known for publication in China has been banned outright. “The (not brutal realismand a entirely) uninhibited experiment that was The Four Books was TheSeventh Day dark,comedic tone made possible because Iwas not writing forpublication,” 2. Liankewrote in The Nation. In 2016, The Four Books was YanLianke, whohas Yang Fei, The Seventh Day’s hapless protagonist, arrives late to long satirised the party shortlisted forthe ManBookerInternational Prize. his ownfuneral only to find he cannot affordaburial plot. Cast and the army Rose Carr from his ancestral home,heiscondemned to wander through purgatory. Aspectral no man’s land wherethe dead and 2. the destituteroam, “the land of the unburied” is the surreal backdrop forYua Hua’s sardonic and oftenabsurdist critique of modern-dayChina. Taking place overthe course of aweek,the storyfollows Yang Fei—born in atrain toilet and killed at 41 in arestaurant fire—ashetravels through the afterlife, encountering a cast of equally ill-fated relatives and acquaintances. The talesofthe characterssatirise the explosiveeffect of market capitalism on China, repletewithgreed, corruption and repression. It is dark but funnytoo. YuaHua wasborn in Hangzhou in 1960.Now one of China’s most politically profane writers, he rose to prominence in the 1980s, turning his hand to fiction afterafive-year stint as a dentist. “The inside of the mouth is the place with the ugliest scenesinthe world,”hetold the NewYork Times. He has since become known forhis brutal realism and dark,comedictone. His novel Brothers (2005) is considered one of the most controversial in modern China. To Live (1992) wasadapted forthe screen by Zhang Yimou and wonthe Grand Prix at the 1994 Cannes film festival. He is one of the fewChinese novelists who writes regularly forthe western press. As a columnist forthe NewYork Times, he has writtenontopics from the Chinese stock market to airpollution and even censorship. Rose Carr

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 29 FICTION INDONESIA ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES Writers, film-makers andpublishers have brought thecountry’s brutal past to global attention. By Ben Bland

n1999,asIndonesians were still celebrating the endof 1. 31 years of dictatorial rule by Suharto, their second president, an unemployed philosophygraduate started writing asprawling novel thatblended his fascination for martial arts and horror stories with an Iacerbic takeonhis country’stwisted history. Eka Kurniawan finished Beauty is aWound three years later,in2002. Weaving together graphic violence and rape with vicious takedowns of officials, religious figures and even the idea of Indonesia itself,itmay have seemed designed to flop. This was, after all, acountry with alimited literaryculture and manylingering political sensitivities. 2. Sure enough, after being picked up by atinylocal publisher and reprinted briefly by abiggerrival, the book disappeared. Undeterred, Kurniawan wrote another, 3. ManTiger,two years later.His second novel was barely Thedevelopment of aliteraryscene in Indonesia has more successful. “Those two novels gave me almostno been hobbled by an exploitative colonial historythat money, so Istarted to work as ascriptwriter and editor left manyilliterate, along period of censorship under for atelevision production house,”saysKurniawan. Suharto and aweakened education system thatdoes Yetsomehow,overadecadelater,hehas found not teach literature, even intoday’smore open and himself at the forefront of arevival of international democratic society.The newbuzz around Indonesian interestinIndonesian writing thathas resulted in global authors has caught the fewpeople slaving away in the publishing deals, glowing reviews and ManTiger’s longlist nation’s small publishing industryunawares. nomination for the 2016 ManBookerInternational Prize. “I can’t believe it’s taken this long, after working Besides Kurniawan and other Indonesian authors, in this field for 40 years and publishing close to200 such as Leila Chudori and Laksmi Pamuntjak, who titles,”saysJohn McGlynn, aUStranslator who runs have emerged on the world literarystage, astrange the Lontar Foundation, aJakarta-based organisation castofcharacters has helped to bring about this thatpromotes Indonesian literature —the only one in awakening. They include aUSdocumentary-maker the countrythatistrying to do so to aglobalaudience. dedicated to exposing the truth about Indonesia’s1965 1. “There’s abasic ignorance and lack of knowledge ES masskillings, agrizzled expatriate translator in Jakarta Leila Chudori about Indonesia abroad, which you can blame on the and executives of the FrankfurtBook Fair,the world’s 2. Indonesian government as well as the international MAG Students demand YI largestliterarytrade show. the resignation of media. Then there’s the global publishing industry, which It is asuitably unlikely storyfor acountrydubbed presidentSuharto in is usually unwilling to takeachance on introducing the “improbable nation”byUSjournalistand scientist 1998 foreign-sounding authors.” Elizabeth Pisani in Indonesia Etc.,published lastyear, 3. As he chain-smokes Indonesian clove cigarettes in which asks whyacountrysolargeand diverse still EkaKurniawan his office in asmall villa, McGlynn, who translated DLI; LIAISON/GETT

attracts so little attention from the restofthe world. Chudori’s2012novel Home into English, explains that FA Notsince Pramoedya Ananta Toer,the former the FrankfurtBookFair’s decision to name Indonesia as political prisoner who wrote in the second half of guestofhonour in 2015 was the “key turning point”. the 20th centuryabout Indonesia’sstruggle for With tens of thousands of international publishers, independence from Dutch colonial rule, have writers agents and journalists in attendance, the fair is one of MUHAMMAD S:

from Indonesia, the world’s fourth mostpopulous nation, the fewopportunities for talented non-English writers TO attracted such interest. to makethe connections theyneed in order to succeed. PHO

30 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘WRITERS HAVE BEEN ABLE TO love for Indonesia, thrustthe painful truth in front of a global audience with his horrific, Oscar-nominated 2012 CHANGE THEPERCEPTION OF documentary The Act of Killing. INDONESIAASACOUNTRYTHAT In Germany, which is still struggling with its own genocidal history, readers seemed to connectwith DOESN’T KNOW WHAT IT’SDOING’ Indonesian writers’ battles to makesense of apastthat refuses to retreatinto history. “I couldn’t breathe at Following in the footsteps of writers from previous some of the events because there were so manypeople guests of honour such as Turkey and South Korea, trying to interviewme,”saysChudori, who is asenior Indonesia’sauthors suddenly found the book world was editor at Tempo, Indonesia’smostrespected weekly listening to whattheyhad to say. “They’ve been able to news magazine. changethe perception of Indonesia as acountrythat Pamuntjak, who co-founded Aksara, one of Jakarta’s doesn’t know whatit’sdoing,”saysClaudia Kaiser,the best-loved bookshops, says thatreaders are drawnto Jakarta-based vice-president for South and Southeast writing framed around whatconflicts do to ordinary Asia at the FrankfurtBookFair. people. “Were friendships possible between the Kurniawan, Chudori and Pamuntjak all have very oppressor and the oppressed, was forgiveness possible?” different backgrounds, personalities and writing styles. she asks. “These questions, which inevitably open up Whatstirred international interestinthese authors was so manygreyzones of the human psyche —doubts, thattheyhad all written about the 1965 massacres of ambiguities, inconsistencies, good versus evil,man more than500,000Communists, leftistsympathisers and versus woman, friend versus foe —are wonderful their families and friends, which Suharto had used to take material for the novel.” control of the nation. “It’sall about 1965,”saysKaiser. Yetdespite the global attention, the debate about Indonesians are still taught the Suharto-era 1965 in Indonesia is still alimited one and the domestic propaganda thatthe mass killings were anecessary publishing industryremains weak. One of the great and limited pre-emptive move againstanimminent ironies of the resurgence of Indonesian writing is thatit Communisttakeover. But since the fall of Suharto in has been facilitated by alack of domestic interest, which 1998, ahandful of Indonesian journalists and writers has allowed authors to tackle taboos about sex, Islam and have tried to broadcastanalternative version. politics without censorship or aconcerted backlash from Joshua Oppenheimer,anAmerican film-maker with a hardline political or religious groups.

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 31 FICTION INDIA REBIRTHOFTHE VERNACULAR Regional Indianlanguageauthors are findingwider audiencesaspublishers look beyond once dominanturban, anglophone names. By AmyKazmin

nJanuary2015, India’sEnglish-speaking, urban Until recently,writing in regional languages middle class awoketounusual news. In asmall struggled for attention in India, overshadowed by southern town, Perumal Murugan, acollegelecturer English. But of late, India’sgrowing publishing and novelistlittle known beyond his home stateof industry, hungryfor more original literaryfiction, has Tamil Nadu, had taken to Facebook to announce his castits netbeyond the urban, anglophone writers who Iown “death”asawriter. have dominated the literaryspotlight. Critically or “Author Perumal Murugan has died,”heposted. commercially successful novels written in indigenous “Perumal Murugan, the writer,isdead. As he is no Indian languages are increasingly published in God, he is not going to resurrecthimself.Hehas no translation, helping them transcend their linguistic faith in rebirth. As an ordinaryteacher,hewill live as boundaries to reach wider audiences. PMurugan. Leavehim alone.” “The mostexperimental and mostambitious novels He asked his publishers to stop selling his books, and I’ve read tend to be translations,”saysRSivapriya, fiction promised to compensate them —and anyreader who felt editor at Juggernaut Books, adigitally oriented Indian it was “a waste” to buy his books —for their losses. publishing house. “If you claim you are publishing the Murugan’s renunciation was prompted by the bestand most interesting Indian fiction, alargepartofit eruption of acontroversy over his 2010 Tamil-language has to come from the Indian languages.” novel, Madhorubhagan,which tells the storyofthe Growing interestinindigenous languagewriting anguish of apeasant couple, childless after 12 years stems partlyfromasense of “sameness” of many of marriage. Under intense family pressure, the wife Indian-English novels, given their authors’ similar attends areligious festival where it is permissible to socioeconomic backgrounds. “Writing in English tends have sexwith anyman to conceive achild, who is to be from, and about, acertainkind of English-educated considered agiftfrom God. middle class,”Sivapriya says. “Inthe Indian languages, it InDecember 2014, agitators complained thatthe tends to be people from all corners of society.” novel defamed local women, depicting them as “sexually Nilanjana Roy,anauthor and critic, says the literary permissive”.After rabble-rousing protests, which “snobbery” thatpreviously favoured English-language drove the author and his family from their home, the fiction is eroding. “There is asense thatIndian languages authorities tried to restore order with a“peace meeting”. are no longer the stepchildren languages,”she says. “They Murugan was put under pressure to “unconditionally maynot getthe global attention theydeserve, but there apologise” and agree to withdraw the offending is alot of confidence in the Indian languages —afeeling portions of the novel. thattheycan hold their own.” Hismetaphorical suicide note followed swiftly.“He Twentyyears ago, Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born was in torment,”Kannan Sundaram, his Tamil publisher, British writer,provoked anger when he derided writing says. “Hefelt he can’t be awriter anymore if he is afraid in India’sindigenous languages as being akin to Soviet and has to takeaccount of so manythings he can’t write “tractor art” —socialistrealism known for its earnest freely about —temple, caste or women.” depictions of grim villagelife. Indian writing in English, One Part Woman —the novel’s English translation he claimed, was a“stronger and more important body of LEVY published more than ayear before the furore —had work” than vernacular writing. Yettoday, contemporary EA been critically acclaimed, but sales had been limited. Indian languageauthors are tackling themes that After Murugan made national headlines, however,the resonate beyond parochial audiences. English version of his book began to fly ftof he shelves, Hangwoman,anovel by KR Meera, written in

the latestnovel written in one of India’sindigenous Malayalam (mostly spoken in the southern stateof TRATION: ANDR languages to find national fame. Kerala) and published in English in 2015, wrestles US ILL

32 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES English versus Hindi India’s publishing industry has been casting its net beyond anglophone writers FICTION INDIA

1.

‘ITISNOT JUST ENGLISH WRITERSTHATRESPOND TO THEMODERNWORLD’

with issues of crime, punishment, class and gender in contemporaryIndia, albeit through the storyofthe last in along line of hereditaryexecutioners in Calcutta. Goat Days,bythe Malayalam-languagewriterBenyamin, looks at the dark side of globalisation as it relates the storyofanIndian migrant worker who goes to the 2. Persian Gulf hoping for abetter life but ends up in a slave-likeexistence as agoat-herder in the Saudi desert. Ghachar Ghochar,byVivek Shanbhag, who writes Many of today’syoung regional languagewriters, in Kannada, alanguagepredominantly spoken in the who come from more diverse social, economic and stateofKarnataka, explores the impactofsudden educational backgrounds than their predecessors, have wealth on atight-knit middle-class family,mirroring no option but to write in the vernacular as theylack the changes thathavetransformed India over 25 years sufficient command of English. “The literature of Indian

of economic liberalisation. An English translation was languages is getting more and more democratised,”says GES

published in India in lastyear,and will appear in the US Sundaram. “All sections of society —people from rural MA in 2017.“It is not justEnglish writers thatrespond to areas, oppressed castes, minorityreligions, women, gays YI the modern world,”saysShanbhag, aformer executive at and transgenders —are allcoming into Tamil literature Unilever,who says he had “no choice” but to write in the in abig way,telling newstories, unknown stories.”

vernacular languageofhis childhood. Muguran, who speaks little English, epitomises this EVINE; GETT India’sliterarycommunityhas long been torn by trend. He is expected to return to writing soon. In an EY debates over language. Between the 1960s and 1980s, important victoryfor free speech in India, the Madras REDUX/

writers such as UR Ananthamurthy, OV Vijayan, High CourtinJuly upheld his right to write freely, T/ and Mahasweta Devi, consciously spurned English, criticised the officials who put pressure on himto H/NY 1. despite their fluencyinthe language, to write fiction apologise and ruled thathis promise to withdraw One

Perumal Murugan in the vernacular tongues of the communities they Part Woman had no legal force. In their conclusion, the SING

(right) at abook were depicting —respectively Kannada, Malayalam judges urged Murugan to be “resurrected to do whathe EK IV signing and Bengali (spoken in West Bengal). It was also is bestat: write”.Inresponse, the writer,who had ruled 2. S: V

Aclassroom in in regional languages where theyfelt their most out his resurrection as an author,promised his readers: TO important readership lay. “I will getup[andwrite again].”

Tamil Nadu PHO

34 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES OPINION |PAKISTAN FICTION

adolescent theorising about how “suffering”produced greatliterature, which didn’t explain whythe people producing it were generally the mostcomfortably off, or whythere is still more literaryfiction being written in the suburbs of Toronto than in corpse-strewn Karachi. Themostimportant, and commonly overlooked, factor was the growth of publishing in India, where editors keep aconstant eyeout for Pakistani talent —India’s love-hate relationship with its neighbour engenders, among other things, an immense curiosity. Indian publishing houses also distribute books in Pakistan, filling the gaps left by an underdeveloped English- languagepublishing industry’ssketchyand inconsistent efforts there. Western publishing houses have still only published ahandful of Pakistani authors —and mostly theywant literaryfiction and non-fiction. Second, Indian publishing houses have, in recent years, made another hugeleap forward by embracing the lucrative possibilities of commercial fiction. Previously, successful Pakistani authors tended to be privileged graduates of elite universities, writing about the upper echelons of society.Through commercial fiction, Pakistanis writing in English are now in aposition to tell stories across avariety of genres and styles, throwing open the doors to abroader cross-section of writers from diverse backgrounds. In the pastfew years, we have seen thrillers setinKarachi —perhaps the perfectgenre to reflectlife in this fast- paced, crime-ridden, gritty but still seductive metropolis —including Omar Shahid Hamid’s The Prisoner (2013) and The Spinner’sTale (2015).Shazaf Fatima Haider’s HowItHappened (2012) took awitty,satirical look at the marriagemarket,laying into the double standards for BOOM OF THE men and women and the hypocrisy thatgoes with them. Saba Imtiaz’s2014novel Karachi, You’re Killing Me! — think Bridget Jones with bomb scares —isbeing adapted GENREBUSTERS as aBollywood movie. And, published this summer,SS Mausoof’s The Warehouse is apulpy neo-noir complete with insurance agents duped by femme fatales. Commercial fictionhas opened the Commercial fiction is judged, as it should be,on its sales. ThePakistani authors writing it find agreat door to newwriters. By FaizaSKhan deal more freedom and are able to shed, for example, the burden of representation and the need to explain cultural context to amore global readership. Forthis, hush appears to have fallen in the westin theytend to forgointernational critical attention. Ithink the pastfew years over Pakistani literary that’sabargain. fiction in English. It maybetrue that everynow and again anovel by aPakistani Faiza SKhanisthe editorial director of author is published to respectable reviews, Bloomsbury India Abut the picture is nothing like2008-09, when ahandful of works by Pakistani writers appeared almostsimultaneously —and to greatacclaim. Daniyal Mueenuddin’s shortstorycollection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (for which he became aPulitzer Prize finalist) was followed by the Booker-longlisted ACaseofExploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif. AUTHORS Kamila Shamsie’s fifth novel, Burnt Shadows,was heralded as her finestwork to date. AREFREEOF Dubbed the “Pakistani literaryboom” —with THENEEDTO reference to the magnificent South American literary boom of the 1960s and 1970s —this eruption of EXPLAIN Pakistani talent seemed to reflect, in part, the literary CULTURAL west’sdesire to “understand”culturally acountrylargely associated with terrorism, religious extremism and other CONTEXT assorted wretchedness. At the same time, there was some

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 35 FICTION TURKEY |OPINION NOVELIDEAS FOR STRANGETIMES Amidpolitical volatility,Turkish literature is becoming more experimental andsubversive. By NiluferKuyas

hen Iagreed to write about the 1. literaryscene in Turkey for this Abookshop in Istanbul magazine, the firstthing Idid was 2. Supporters of President visit adearfriend, Asuman Kafaoglu Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Buke, the bestliterarycritic of her Istanbul’sTaksim Square Wgeneration, who also sits on the jury this July afterthe failed of Literaris, the Austrian prize. coup attempt “Let’ssee whatthe British reader makes of you,”she said. “Theymight think you are justanother Muslim woman speaking about literature in Turkey.” We giggled 1. withglee, chatting about the preconceived notions of western publishers and media about Turkey.Then I realised, with athrill, thatwe—Imean people likeme: Theexpansion of form and experimentation with style progressive, secularist, westernised —don’t mind being are also remarkable. Literaryschools and movements stereotyped as much anymore. There is still aprofound have sprung up. There is even aTurkish Gothic genre, disillusionment with Europe, but the resentment has which repurposes themes and figures from Ottoman gone; the mood is now one of humorous equanimity. myths and fantasies —asign thatthe countryiscoming Whathas changed? Where does this newconfidence to terms with its historical schisms and cultural tensions. come from? Part of it stems from our pleasure in the Perhaps more noteworthyisthe emergence of a recent effervescence of Turkish fiction. “Some of the most powerful genre of “underground realism”, given voice by exciting novels in the world todayare written in Turkey,” the dissident, conscience-stricken, fiercely individualistic Kafaoglu Bukesays. “Turkish fiction has reached apeak. literarycurrent predominating in Turkey.These writers’ Ifeel luckyIcan read it all —Idoubt translation could political engagement is philosophical, their language do much of it justice.” often poetic, their stories subtly subversive, almost This literaryeffusion has come about despite —or abstract. ThepoetHuseyin Kiran, novelists Baris Bicakci perhaps because of —heightened political repression, and Hakan Gunday(winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger the escalating Kurdish conflict, toppedfbyay of ear of 2015) are among them. Iwas recently impressed terroristbombings and the July coup attempt, which has by rising star Isahag Uygar Eskiciyan’s desolate left hundreds dead, tens of thousands imprisoned and a experimental novel Pitch. nation deeply traumatised. To pick my wayround this maze of newtalent, I Theidea of artintimes of conflictisacliché in Turkey. consulted Muge Gursoy Sokmen, proprietor and co- Ajournalistfriend wrote to me after the failed coup editor of Metis, the publishing house. Gursoy Sokmen attempt: “The goings-on would leave the bestfiction publishes several novelists with rising reputations, writer befuddled.”But that is precisely the point. The notably Ayhan Gecgin, whose lastnovel, The Long Walk, IMAGES

headline on acomment piece by novelistRichard TKelly attracted critical attention in 2015. In it, anamelesshero TY

in TheGuardian in July was: “If politics has become leaves home and walks through devastating scenes of life ET stranger than fiction, we novelists musttry harder.” The in contemporaryTurkey. /G TO

bestTurkish novelists do justthat: theybreak through Women writers have been highly visible lately.Sema HO

ideological wallsand grapple with the complexities of life. Kaygusuz, anovelist, screenwriter and author of short RP More translations of Turkish fiction are appearing stories, is one of the leading female voices in fiction S: NU

than ever before,innon-European languages too. today. Sule Gurbuz, with her experimental, densely TO Turkish literature seems to be shedding its insularity. philosophical books, such as To Die With Joy,writes PHO

36 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES 2.

complain thatthe market is dominated by bookstore chains and big publicitybudgets. Despite market pressure, publishers are not shyabout seeking newtalent. Theindependent online book review K24, for which Iwrite,ran afeature in July on writers aged 35 and under.Among the dozen authors interviewed, there was not asingle storyofrejection. All had their firstbook published within ayear,sometimes just months after submitting their manuscripts, even though literaryagents are almostunheard of in Turkey. On the other hand, each writer complained about a dearth of literarycriticism. Where are the arbiters of taste?“Critics haven’t disappeared —theyare less visible, theywrite on social media and blogs,”Gursoy Sokmen says. But clearly theydon’twield the influence theyonce did. Thefield is too large. Mainstream cultural ‘TURKISH FICTIONHAS REACHED journalism is divided and weakened, and social media APEAK. IDOUBT TRANSLATION cannot fill the void entirely. Although Islamic conservatives have been in power COULDDOMUCHOFITJUSTICE’ for 14 years and have sought to create their own literary stars —sofar without success —cultural hegemonyis still in the balance. My writer friend Emre Ayvazpoints about absurditywith atongue-in-cheek seriousness. out there are no grants, no institutions of supportfor Gursoy Sokmen agrees there has been aliteraryexplosion, authors in Turkey,public or private. He thinks the race pushing writers into clusters of solidarity: publishing for visibilitypushes writers to trytocover everything, to journals, forming schools or even gangs. One such is the saytoo much, to be too clever. self-styled “Swaggering Hipsters”,abunch of mostly An editor at K24, Murat Sevki Coban, agrees. He male enfants terribles. Well-educated children of middle- thinks manywriters who are overwhelmed by reality class families, theyrepresent aliterarypop culture: loud, escape into allegory. There is atendencytoencapsulate street-wise, confident with slang. Their sales are robust. experience in philosophical platitudes. Sevki Coban and One of their stars, Emrah Serbes, shot to fame with Ijokingly called this “aphoristic realism”. Ankara-based crime novels and recently wrote The King ButIwant to finishinthe positivemoodIstarted with. of TaksimSquare,set during the Gezi park protests of 2013. Theeast-westdivide seems no longer to be the burning According to domestic statistics backed by the existential issue it once was. That postmodern cultural International Publishers Association, Turkey ranks 12th identitycrisis, which Nobellaureate Orhan Pamuk used in the world in terms of ISBN titles and number of books to such greateffectinhis novels, appears to have subsided. published per capita. Even if these figures are overblown, “Turkish writers no longer want to see themselves or the this is impressive. countrythrough another’s eyes,”Kafaoglu Bukesays. Media-savvy authors sell in their hundreds of “Weare tired of identitypolitics.”Turkish fiction, as it thousands. Thedayswhen distributors used to saythat struggles with the endless strangeness of fact, has broken Turkish writers don’t sell are long gone. its mould and shed manyofits stereotypes. We both Thedownside to this upbeattrend is thatthe playing wondered if the westcan shed some if its own as well. field is too level; there is acatch-all of styles, with no Who knows? Thesecretmight soon be out. clear process of critical selection. “Only the market decides,”saysGursoy Sokmen, and manycommentators Nilufer Kuyasisanovelist based in Istanbul

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 37 FICTION CHINA STRETCHING THETRUTH Thesilencing of influential liberal voices signalsthatanew cycleof censorship hasbegun under PresidentXiJinping.ByLucy Hornby

he truth can seem so strangeastobe restrictions. That doesn’t mean the literature is good,”he unbelievable in China these days. Consider says. some surreal events thathavemadethe Chinese authors viewLink’sanaconda in adifferent headlines in the pastyear: escalators light. They focus on whattheycan say, rather than on swallowing people up, sickening miasmas whattheycannot. Many writers remember atime when Trising up from school running tracks, asports theycould be severely punished even for whatwas in stadium flooded with water eaglik iant swimming pool. their notebooks. Nowadays, theysay,the question is not And dissenters mysteriously vanishing, only to reappear so much whattheyare allowed to write but whatthey and denounce themselves on statetelevision. maypublish. So whatisafiction writer to do in acountry where In response, some aim for whatthe feministnovelist even the daily news reads likemagic realism? Xu Xiaobin describes as “a coherent storyand adeeper “Impossible things happen in China everyday,” says layer for wiser readers”.Her female characters experience YanLianke, who was born in an impoverished village historythatisverydifferent from the version taught in in Henan province in 1958. He grew up during Mao state-approved textbooks. Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, which sought to replace Xu,Yan and fellownovelistYuHua have each chronicled traditional Chinese culturewith Maoistideology. some of modern China’smostturbulenttimes in their Yanjoined the armyasateenagerinorder,hesays, to fiction. All threewere teenagers during the tumultuous getthree square meals aday.Now 58, he has become one Cultural Revolution and cameofageaswriters in the of China’sbestselling (and mostoften-banned) authors. 1980s, when foreign ideas of everystripe began to flood “Whatwesee is usually the external truth; the inner back into China. Their generation was defined by the truth is usually hard to find —but this inner truth is protests in Tiananmen square in1989and the bloody precisely whatliterature should grasp,”hesays. crackdown and years of repression that followed. Sixty-seven years of Communistrule have provided They have tested —and sometimes crossed —the both foil and fodder for Chinese novelists. Their work boundaries of whatcensors will allow for mostof is tolerated by the stateaslong as subjects are tackled their writing lives. Over the pastthree decades, those obliquely —and routinely banned when theydare to be boundaries have retreated as Chinese society has more direct. liberalised at adizzying speed. TheAmerican sinologistPerryLink coined the Nowanew cycle of tightening has begun. Influential metaphor of “the anaconda in the chandelier”to liberal voices in civil society have been silenced or jailed illustratethe dilemma of self-censorship thatgrips as President Xi Jinping roots out factional opponents China’seditors, writers and journalists. Conscious in the party and the military. Daring publishers have always of the beastcoiled above them, mostinternalise been prosecuted for corruption. TheChinese internet the rules of whatcannot be written, thus sparing the once hosted acacophonyofvoices absent from the staid censor his job, he argued. official media, includingty wit social critique. Nowit Theincentives to self-censor are obvious. Awriter is awash with “red posts” by nationalistic leftists who MÉNIAKO

whose creativityfinds expression within (or just denounce the intellectuals as “rightists”. SÉ outside) the bounds of whatispermissible can live Thewatershed for intellectuals came in October 2014, IS

verycomfortably.Yan believes thatChinese literature when artists were ordered to study aspeech on literature BOR pays aprice for self-censorship, however,interms of and artdelivered by Xi thatconsciously harked back diminished international influence. to MaoZedong’s 1942 “Forum on Literature and Art”,

“The reason Chinese literature is paid attention to which foreshadowed the Communistparty’s subsequent TRATION: is because people payattention to Chinese political war on intellectuals. US ILL

38 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘CHINESE SOCIETYIS ALWAYS LIKE THIS.YOU LOOSEN,THINGS GET CHAOTIC. YOUTIGHTEN, SOCIETYSTARTSTODIE’

ThetextofXi’sspeech was not made publicly available until late 2015. But when it was, his takeon contemporaryliterature caused manytoshiver.The president denounced works that“ridicule the sublime, warp the classics, subverthistoryordefile themasses and heroic characters” and those wherein “good and evil cannot be distinguished, ugliness replaces beauty and the dark side of society is overemphasised”. Instead, he decreed, writers should produce works with “positive energy”. Getting work published under these conditions is agame in which literarydaring sometimes wins, thanks to shifts in the political winds or commercial publishers’ need for abestseller.The existence of literate and wealthyChinese societies justout of reach of the Communiststate —Hong Kong is no longer the safe haven it once was, but there is still self-ruled Taiwan — means books banned in China can still find theiry wa to aChinese audience. Authors and publishers mustnow reassess what can and cannot be published in China. Some, likeXu, whose writing relies on dreams and symbolism, are experimenting with genre. She has responded by trying her hand at fantasy.“Right now Iamescaping alittle,” she says. “I have alot of thoughts Ican’t write out.” Yu Hua, bestknown in the westfor his 1990s epic To Live,believes his recent novella The Seventh Day could not be published today(it came out in 2013, justbefore Xi’stightening began). It is asatirical tale of the sort of social injustice thatappears frequently in the daily papers, narrated by acorpse awaiting its own burial. But Yu is taking the long view. “Chinese society is always likethis,”hesays. “You loosen, things getchaotic. Youtighten, society starts to die.”The idea thatthis phase could lasteven as long as adecade he views as “a little pessimistic”. He recalls that, in 1987, his shortstories had just begun to find an audience when all his commissions were cancelled following the fall of the reformistleader Hu Yaobang. In despair,the young writer walked all dayacross Beijing and back. “I knewifIstayed in the dormitoryIcould not bear it. Ihad to keep walking all the time. Ifelt thatIwas so close to getting famous and then all of asudden it was all over.” Thelasting impactofthe current crackdown will not be on Yu’s generation but on ayounger crowd coming to grips with its own inner truth in amodern society where politics is often more unpredictable than fiction. Propaganda might be misleading but has abasis in reality, Yansays. “So manythings we see on TV seem fake, but thatdoesn’t mean thattheydon’t exist.”

Additional reporting by Luna Lin and WanLi

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 39

FILM LATIN AMERICA/ CARIBBEAN ‘I WANTED TO TELL AFABLE WHERE GODIS FEMININE’ Clarissa Campolina,winner, Emerging Voices Film Award

By JoeLeahy Photograph by AndréVieira

nthe cityofBelo Horizonte, where Brazilian experimental film director Clarissa Campolina grew up, nothing is permanent. Thecapital of the state of Minas Gerais (“general mines” in English) climbs ahill thathas been hollowed out on one side for its Irich deposits of iron ore. Another once commanding hill, on the road to a friend’s house, one daysimply disappeared and lastyear amining disaster led to amud tsunami thatpolluted one of Brazil’s largestriver systems. “This landscape in acertain waygavemethe sensation thatthe world had already ended, thatweare already dealing with the end of time,”Campolina says. Thegeneral sense of devastation in Minas Gerais presented Campolina with the idea for her latestshort film, Solon,awork thathas solidified her reputation as one of the country’smostcreative directors, particularly among those outside the creative hubs of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Rather than using the destruction of Minas Gerais to create ataleofcataclysm, she turns it into the background for acreation myth. In akind of moving

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 43 FILM LATINAMERICA /CARIBBEAN MAGES YI INI/GETT ST GO EA :D TO PHO

installation thatcombines fine artand film, acreature their stories to build anarrative thatblendsfiction with Mining emerges from aburning, arid landscape, spouts water dreamyreality. Campolina took and eventually turns into awoman. In Swirl,Bastú, an 81-year-old widow starts anew inspiration from the landscape of her We meettodiscuss her latestwork at Rio de Janeiro’s life after the loss of her husband. She is played by home stateofMinas Museum of Art, alandmark in the city’sbeautified Maria Sebastian Martins Álvaro, aresident of the Minas Gerais Centro district. “I never want to stay in my comfortzone Gerais sertão (back country) along the São Francisco —Ialways want to experiment with something new,” river.“Time doesn’t stop —it’suswho stop,”Bastú Campolina says.“Ithink thatwith Solon Iwanted to tell remarks in the film, one of yofhman er characteristically afable of the reconstruction of the world, where Godis blunt observations. feminine, not masculine, with abody thatforms partof Working with non-actors is rewarding, Campolina the landscape and vice versa.” says. But it can taketime — Swirl took six years to film. Born in 1979, Campolina gother startincinema She uses asimilar tactic in Stretch,another partnership in 1997 as an assistant director after studying with Marins, in which the twodirectors follow acentral communications. She worked with Rafael Conde, character,Libério, as he retraces a2,300-kmjourney adirector and professor of fine arts at the Federal along Brazil’s highways thathehad made eight years UniversityofMinas Gerais, before becoming apartner previously.“Thejourneyisareconstruction of ajourney in Teia, acollective production outfit, between 2002 —itcould be fiction. We filmedthe points along the way and 2014.She has since founded her own company, thatheremembered,”Campolina says. Anavilhana. Working in partnerships has been abig partof Campolina has made five shortfilmsand one feature, Campolina’swork, she says. Having asecond opinion Swirl,which she co-directed with Helvécio Marins. It helps to “divertabit some of my obsessions and keep had its premiere at the 2011 Venice film festival, where it me in check”. won the Interfilm Award. “I likethe sense of exchangeverymuch,”she adds. Several of Campolina’sworks have experimented “Having someone else’s opinion helps me to hone my with adocumentarystyle, using ordinarypeople and own perspective.”

44 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES 1. Camilo Restrepo TaniaCattebeke, discoveredanew Colombia afteryears runner-up away from the country 2. Tania Cattebeke Olia explored death through the eyes Tania Cattebekemay be the only film-maker who has of achild arranged foracastmember to playhimself without him knowing it. Olia is inspired by her family’s struggle to explain to her nephewthe death of his nanny—“My sister told him that itwas along trip”—and the resulting film is apersonal exploration of death, seen through the eyes of achild. Using only black and whitestills and strong audio production techniques, Olia tells the storyofthe aftermath of the nanny’s death. “One dayIreturned from university and found my mother at home crying because my nephewhad told herthe night beforethathis nannyhad been calling him with abell.” The sound of the bell both spooked Cattebekeand sparked her imagination. “Thatevent wasthe inspiration for Olia,” she says. With no budget, Cattebekecast her family in the production; her mother and nephewtook leading roles. This presented its ownproblems, especially when it came to her nephew. “It wasverydifficultbecause when we were shooting Ididn’t want him to understand that the film was about him,”she says. “He still hasn’t seen [it] because Ithink it would scarehim if he knew.” With little in the wayofafilm industryinher native 1. Paraguay, Cattebeke, aformer psychology student, started making shortfilms on her ownbeforeembarking on a full-time career as acinematographer in 2013.She has Camilo Restrepo,runner-up since been recognised forher work at international festivals and says she hopesthis might help her win ascholarship Impressions of aWar to go to film school. “Paraguayisstarting to tell storieswith film, but this is new “I belong to ageneration of Colombians who were strongly formycountry,”she says. “Wedon’t have acinematography affected by the most violent yearsofthe conflict and who industryhereyet, but we have so manystoriestotell.” bear the stigmataofthe war,”saysCamilo Restrepo.Born in Rose Carr 1975 in Medellín, Colombia, Restrepo explores the pervasive effects of a50-year-long internecine waronasociety that has 2. been ravaged by guerrilla groups, drug traffickers, militaryand paramilitaryforces, and mafia-style gangs. “The countryhas turned intoabattlefield, leading to aclimateofgeneralised violence gradually settling across the whole of society,” he says. The visible tracesofthe conflict have been etched into the landscape,inthe cityscapesand on the battlefields, and these physical wounds form the visual backdrop of Restrepo’s Impressions of aWar.“My goal wastocapturevisible traces of the violence in the daily lives of thepeople who liveinthat country,”hesays. Restrepo has lived and worked in Parissince 1999.Since then, “memories, encounters, telephone conversations and the media have been my substitutes forliving [in Colombia] daytoday”, he says. “Overtime, adifferent countryfromthe one Iused to knowhas takenshape forme.”His forayinto film-making startedinresponse to revisiting Colombia, and contrasting “the recomposed Colombia in my mind with the country’sreality”. Restrepo is amember of the film-makers’ collective L’Abominable,anexperimental film lab. Impressions of a War wasshot on 16mm film, adecision that imposed certain restrictions on the process. “I create the image mentally as I am manipulating it physically,and my films evolveconstantly in response to technical decisions,”saysRestrepo. Rose Carr

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 45 FILM CUBA HAVANA IN ON THEACTION Hollywood producersare rushingto shoot in anewly open Cuba butlocal film-makersfearthe moneybrought in willnot be reinvested in theisland’s ownindustry. By John Paul Rathbone

hen Hollywood’s Academyof Motion Picture Arts and Sciences asked JorgePerugorría to become a member this January, the 50-year-old Cuban film star was delighted but Wperplexed. “I had to ask around if I was allowed to join. Ididn’t think it would be possible,” he says. “Then Ihad to ask the Academyiftheycould send me physical DVDs —Cuban internetconnections are too slow for downloads.” Perugorría, the “JohnnyDepp of Havana” or “Pichi”, as he is nicknamed, is bestknown internationally for his lead role in the 1993 Oscar-nominated Strawberry & Chocolate,the storyofafriendship between an orthodox Communistand ahomosexual artist. Hisbemusement at the Academy’smembership invitation reflects the ideologically ambiguous, legally uncertain and woefully underfunded state of Cuban film.wo T years into the restoration of diplomatic ties between Havana and Washington, the industryisopening up, albeit haltingly. “No es fácil —it’snot easy,” he says. Claudia Claviño, 33, the producer of the 2012 surprise hit Juan of the Dead,adarkly comic Havana-based zombie flick, is bolder in her assessment ofthe stateof Cuban film-making. t’“I sbad,” she says. Fordecades, Cuban film was at the forefront of official revolutionaryculture. One of Fidel Castro’s firstactsafter his revolutionarygovernment took power in 1959 was to create the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry(the ICAIC), whose expresspurpose was to develop apowerful mass communication medium, albeit at the expense of independent voices, which were MAGES

suppressed under the Communistdictatorship. YI Nearly 60 years later,the situation has changed GETT

somewhat. US production companies have arrived. Local O/

independent producers and directors, who sprang up in OT the 1990s as digital technologymade film-making more Rolling into town accessible and statefunding ranout,are becoming more BO PH On the Havana set of established. Ideological red lines have blurred. AM Fast 8,the latestinthe :M

US action series The “It’scurious: in the same breath aCuban might TO say, ‘VivaFidel!’ and then ‘This is averyf**ked-up

Fast and the Furious PHO

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 47 FILM CUBA

‘YOU CANOWN A RESTAURANT,YOU CANOWN AGUEST HOUSE,BUT YOU CAN’THAVEALEGALLY REGISTERED LOCALFILM COMPANY’

country’,” observes Marcel Beltrán, 31, an independent film-maker based in Havana. Beltrán’s shortfilm TheCloud premiered at this year’s Miami Film Festival, in another softening of traditional enmities between the US and Cuba, while his feature- length documentaryonChinolope, aone-armed Cuban photographer who worked for Life and Time magazines, explores such tensions further.Chinolope was born in poverty and went on to be awarded revolutionaryhero 2. status, photographing Castro and the rebels in the Sierra Maestra. He was later pushed asidebythe government after he sided with homosexual writers and other artists. Whether this influx will be aboon or abanefor local 1. LikeThe Rolling Stones, who played agig in Havana film-making, though, is open to question. “I am all for Marcel Beltrán in March, and French fashion house Chanel, which two US film-makers coming here if it helps cinema and 2. Claudia Claviño months later turned the Paseo del Prado boulevard into a Cuba’seconomygenerally,” says Claviño. “But it would 3. catwalk, Hollywood has long been seduced by the island’s be good if the ICAIC reinvested some of those Fast and CarlosLechuga forbidden exoticism. That interesthas become manifest Furious dollars into local film. There’s no sign of that.” 4. since newUSTreasuryregulations, published in January, With little privateorpublic moneyavailable locally, Jorge PerugorrÌaon allowed American production companies to shoot Cuban films areva in riably co-productions funded by set in Havana scripted shows on the island —something previously foreign sources —todate, largely from Europe or Latin illegal under the economic embargo. America. Viva,atouchingdrama released this year TheShowtime comedy series House of Lies was shot aboutadragqueen son and his boxer father (played by in Cuba this year,aswas action-fantasy Transformers: Perugorría) was written, directed and funded by Irish The Last Knight.Actor and director Ethan Hawkehas movie-makers. US-based independents, meanwhile, stated his intention to scout for locations in Cuba for an can turn to crowdfunding, as theydid with The Oldies,a adaptation of Camino Real,aTennessee Williams play bittersweetdocumentaryabout ageing thatwas filmed in setinadead-end deserttown. Most dramatic of all, the Santa Claraprovince. action series The Fast and the Furious shot its eighth ForCuban film-makers, though, there is little sign the instalment, Fast 8,inHavana in May. This was amassive country’stentative opening-up has had manybenefits, logistical exercise. In co-operation with the Cuban army, although it has generated income for independents with the shoot involved at leasttwo firsts: aUScompany asideline in production services for foreign commercials hiring ahelicopter toflyover the cityand obtaining and musicvideo producers. “Weare in acultural recession,” permission to use pyrotechnics during the filming. says Carlos Lechuga, 33, director of the prize-winning 2012 film Melaza,about adestitute former sugar- producing town. “There was hope thatwhen the US 1. came, cultural lifewould getbetter.Ithasn’t happened.” Lechuga says his European co-producer called

Melaza’s budget “embarrassingly small”,while Beltrán NCHEZ shot his film “with azero budget”.Budgetsaside, they SA also still have to turn to the ICAIC for script approval, DDAM

shooting permits and cinema distribution. SA It is an unusual, sometimes uneasy relationship. Some worrythatwhile the government opens its arms /EFE; TO

to Hollywood, it will shut out independent film-makers ES

who address more sensitive themes. Complicating matters RN

for the film industryisits lack of formal legal status. “You OE can own arestaurant, you can own aguesthouse, but

you can’t have alegally registered local film company,” EJANDR bemoans Claviño, who is lobbying for legal change. S: AL

Further challenges rangefrom the lack of credit cards TO —the financing mainstayofsomanyfirstfilms—to PHO

48 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES 4. Thesleuthwho shines alight on Cubanfoibles

Mario Conde is slovenly,often drunk and alwayshard-up.Heisawomaniser,prone to doubt and self-examination, apolice detective who would rather be awriterand an anti-hero 3. who feels solidarity with “writers, crazypeople and drunkards”. He is also the island’sbest-lovedfictional ‘WEARE IN ACULTURALRECESSION. character and the creation of Leonardo Padura, Cuba’s most famous living novelist. “I think of THEREWAS HOPE THAT WHEN THE myself as being abit likeConde,” says Cuban US CAME,CULTURALLIFEWOULD actor Jorge Perugorría,toshrieks of laughter from his family. GETBETTER. IT HASN’T HAPPENED’ Conde is unique in Cuba in that, through him, Paduraisable to describe Havana’s multiple rundown cinemas thatlimit audiences, poor internet and obvious failings (the crumbling houses, the speeds and, mostrecently, sharply rising costs. lifts that don’t work,the Scotch whisky that only “It’sauniversalworry,” says Paul Federbush of the the well-connected can afford, the dirty streets) Sundance Institute, aUSorganisation thatsupports in apolitically acceptable way. emerging film-makers and is running aseries of film Four Conde novels —the so-called Havana workshops in Cuba for Cubans. “The US influx has Quartet—havebeen adapted forthe screen, pushed up Cuban production costs.” in aEuropean/Cuban co-production directed Likethe countryasawhole, the Cuban film industry by Spain’sFélix Viscarret due to premierethis is in transition. TheICAIC, in common with other year.Hollywood actor and producer Antonio stateinstitutions, is struggling to redefine its role, Banderas has optioned the rights foramooted and the noveltyand allure of Cuba as abackdrop will English-language television series. eventually fade. Film-makers will therefore need to An even hotterticket, though, promises develop storylines with more universal themes if they to be theeventual adaptation of Padura’s are to flourish. Meanwhile, local film-makers face many masterpiece, The ManWho LovedDogs,his of the same problems as independents everywhere — prize-winning novelthat tells the storyofexiled but with some added difficulties. “You can always find Russian revolutionaryLeon Trotsky’s assassin, actors under 17 or over 50,” says Lechuga. “Between who ended his days in Havana. “Thatbook is a those years, though, it’s hard: almosteveryone has very sought-afterproject,”saysLía Rodríguez, emigrated —orwants to leave.” the Cuban co-producer of the Conde films. JPR

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 49 FILM COLOMBIA FOOTPRINTS OF WAR As half a century of violence comes to an end, the country’s film-makers are shifting their focus to what will be left behind. By Andres Schipani

fter five decades of internecine bloodletting to her commander — escape this “dark beast” that is the civil war has finally ended. Now, more the war. “The focus is the suffering of these women than ever, Colombian film-makers feel it so as to put the voiceless victims at the centre,” says is their duty to examine the lacerations, to Guerrero. “The radars of Colombian film-makers are reflect on half a century of conflict thatled now set on the impact of violence.” Ato 225,000 deaths and displaced almost 7m The preoccupation is understandable given that people from their homes and land. this generation of Colombian film-makers have all “It is important to talk about the war, of what been affected in some way by their country’s violent happened, what it has left us, its protagonists. recent history. They range from Ciro Guerra, director Because if we don’t talk about all of that, we cannot of the Oscar-nominated Embrace of the Serpent, who look at the mistakes we made and we won’t be able is now exploring the origins of drug-fuelled violence to heal the wounds,” explains Jhonny Hendrix, a in the upcoming Birds of Passage, to the lesser known Colombian film-maker and double award winner at Sebastián Mejía who, with co-director Alice Tabard, the Cartagena film festival. has released They Return, a heart-wrenching account After almost four years of peace talks, the Colombian of forced displacement. government and negotiators from the left-wing As the peace deal, which was reached in Cuba Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) recently in August, faces stiff opposition from Colombia’s signed a deal to end the fratricidal war, which over the conservative sectors, Mejía believes it is “crucial for years has involved these two opposing sides, as well as these movies to reach those who do not trust this peace”. right-wing paramilitary groups and drugs gangs. He adds: “I have hopes based on what’s happening in “This is a moment of healing, in which one has to fill Havana, but movies should be a mirror of what still one’s heart with hope, look back at what happened in needs to be solved in Colombia.” order not to repeat it,” Hendrix says. “Cinema is the place To do that, directors should keep bringing human that allows all of us to saturate ourselves with what we stories to the forefront, says Claudia Triana, director of don’t want to see any more, in order not to do it again.” Colombia’s film development fund, Proimágenes. “Film- Hendrix recently finished the script of The Troop makers have the challenge of trying to humanise this about a sergeant in the Colombian army who is peace, and by humanising stories from all sides of the kidnapped by Farc guerrillas, escapes after an air strike armed conflict they can promote a dialogue,” she says. and returns to his old life, only to find that his family Even animated films are making war and has abandoned him. He realises he hates war more than reconciliation their focus. Unbreakable Boy by Anamaría anything else. “It is a metaphor that shows that war Castiblanco tells the story, due on screen in 2018, of only produces losses,” says Hendrix. a child who loses his father and one of his legs after This war has been an overarching theme of stepping on a landmine, but who nevertheless becomes Colombian cinema since 1965, roughly a year after the a cycling champion and forgives his estranged uncle- beginning of the civil strife, when Julio Luzardo’s The turned-trainer, who placed the mine. River of the Tombs was released. Notwithstanding, Landmines were a central feature of Colombia’s war. argues Pedro Adrián Zuluaga, a Colombian film critic, The country was second only to Afghanistan for the “it has evolved; now it is about the footprints left number of casualties by landmines in 2014, as recorded behind by the war”. by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Last That is patent in Felipe Guerrero’s Dark Beast, year, the warring sides agreed to clean up the battlefields. acclaimed at this year’s Guadalajara film festival, about Castiblanco started writing the story when the three silenced women fleeing their war-torn lives. Colombian peace talks started. “Now, we are in a Filmed in Colombia’s lush Magdalena Medio region, moment which inspires us to make these kinds of films,” these women — one whose village has been ravaged, one she says, adding: “This is the moment of turning a new who has been raped by what could either be a guerrilla leaf and telling stories in which the central theme is or a paramilitary fighter and one who was a combatant forgiveness. We already have many movies about the who buried corpses and provides sexual distractions conflict, so here we are looking at the post conflict.”

50 | FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘THIS IS THE MOMENT OF TURNING A NEW LEAF AND TELLING STORIES IN WHICH THE CENTRAL THEME IS FORGIVENESS’

Suffering in silence Dark Beast focuses on the voiceless victims of Colombia’s violence, according to director Felipe Guerrero

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES | 51 FILM MEXICO BORDER STORIES As thethriller Desierto takesaim at Donald Trump’santi-immigrant rhetoric,directors from alloverthe worldare training theirlenseson ‘the mostabsurdborderonearth’. By StephenWoodman

londraHidalgosees her firstlead role 1. in afeature film as apolitical projectas much as apersonalone. TheMexican actress stars alongside Gael García Bernal, one of Mexico’s mostrecognisable faces, Ain Desierto,athriller about agroup of migrants stalked by aracistAmerican sniper as they attempt to steal across the US-Mexico border. Desierto is due for release in the US on October 14,just three weeks before the presidential election. Promoting it, the castand crewhavebroughtthe film’s political subtext to the surface. At times, Desierto’s publicity campaign has seemed likeanattack on Republican party 2. nominee Donald Trump, whose diatribes againstillegal Mexican immigrants have been denounced at home and 1. abroad. “It’simportant to speak out againsthim because Jonás Cuarón his stance is contagious,”saysHidalgo. fight in the Middle East, the film implies he will become 2. Desierto’sMexican director,Jonás Cuarón, whose one of the manyforeign-born veterans to be deported, Desierto featuring Gael García Bernal previous credits include co-writer on his father Alfonso’s despite having served in the US military. Hollywood blockbuster Gravity,has made the link with Pitts says he believes the US and Mexico share Trump explicitly.The movie’s international trailer begins “the mostabsurdborder”onearth. Awall, he says, is with avoiceover of parts of Trump’s June 2015 speech an unbecoming monument in anation founded by about Mexican immigrants. “They’re bringing drugs, immigrants. “People don’t want to help immigrants any they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists… and it’s gottastop,” more,”hesays. “Walls are being built all over the place.” Trump intones, as we watch the vigilante gunman shoot Similarly,British director Marc Silver has looked to the at the men and women running and hiding in the desert. US-Mexico border.His 2013 documentary Who is At apress conference, Cuarón encouraged Mexicans Dayani Cristal? also featured García Bernal, who plays to upload ironic photos of themselves and their families himself hitching aride on the trans-Mexico freight train to Facebook and Instagram holding placards bearing migrants call “LaBestia” (The Beast). Hisaim is to trace Trump’s epithets “Rapist”,“Criminal” or “I’mbringing the movements of an unknown man whose body was drugs”.Hepromised to print them and send them to found 20 minutes by carfrom thecityofTucson, Arizona. television networks. Silver’s film focuses on the dangerous desertcorridor Mexico has alongtradition of cinema about thatmigrants increasingly traverse in an effortto immigration —one that has grown in popularityover avoid tightened securityalong the traditional routes. the pastdecade. But foreign directors have also made Before 2000, typically 12 bodies were found in the powerful films about Mexican migrants. Iranian-born Arizona desertevery year.Between 2001and 2014,the Rafi Pitts’ Soy Nero,for example, was nominated for annual averagerose to 165, manyofwhich are never the Golden Bear award at the 2016 Berlin film festival identified. “I thought about the universal storyofthe but does not yethaveaUKorUSrelease date. Thefilm re-humanisation of askeleton,”Silver says. “Itjust tells the storyofNero Maldonado, ayoung Mexican happened to takeplace at the US-Mexico border.” who enlists in the US armyasa“green card soldier”in Thegreatestthreats to migrants crossing to the US an attempt to secure citizenship. Although he is sent to can come from fellow Latinos. In August2010, theZetas

52 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘IT’SIMPORTANTTOGIVEAFACETO migrants in Mexico and came to see their potential as MIGRANTS ANDSHOWWEARE NOT protagonists. “Theywere risking their lives to help their families. It was aheroic journey,”hesays. ALLRAPISTS OR DRUG TRAFFICKERS’ Alejandro Solalinde, aCatholic priestwho runs a migrant shelter in southern Mexico and appears as drug cartel murdered 72 migrants pulled from intercity himself in both Who is Dayani Cristal? and The Golden buses in San Fernando, asmall cityinnorth-eastMexico. Dream,shares this view. He says US society is “tired out Thediscoveryofmass graves containing 193 bodies by individualism”. Migrants, on the other hand, “bring a in the same region the following year emphasised the sense of inclusion materialist, consumeristsocieties lack”. vulnerabilityofmigrants in Mexico. Thevictims were Evil and misfortune are not the focus of every mostly Central Americans on their waytoTexas. immigration film —family comedies have also engaged Then there is the threatofsexual violence: Amnesty with the challenges of journeying north to startanew International estimated in 2010 thatasmanyassix in 10 life. In Instructions NotIncluded (2013), Mexican actor migrant women and girls are raped. In 2014,Fusion, a Eugenio Derbez plays acarefree womaniser who crosses news organisation, raised thatestimate to eight in 10. the border to return ababytoher mother in LosAngeles. Spanish-born Mexican DiegoQuemada-Díez, who Audiences took to the film’s lighthearted tone —it directed The Golden Dream (2013), travelled on La is the highestgrossing Mexican movie in the US ever, Bestia as partofhis research, experiencing manyofthe having netted $44m at the boxoffice. “For manyyears events depicted in the film, including having agun held we wanted to portray darkness,”saysDerbez, who also to his head by agangster.The film tells the storyoftwo directed and co-wrote the film. “Watching aMexican Guatemalan teenagers trying to reach the US,accompanied movie meant watching pain and poverty.” by aTzotzil Mayan boy who speaks no Spanish. Now, though, with Trump’s viewsgaining supportin Yetwhile his film is politically engaged, Quemada- the US,Derbez believes it is time to present positive Díez —who received the “A Certain Talent”award at immigration stories. “It’simportant to give aface to Cannes for the film —sayshewas primarily drawntothe migrants and show thatweare not all rapists or drug topic for artistic reasons. He interviewed more than 600 traffickers,”hesays.

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 53 FILM BRAZIL

he nucleus of São Paulo’s avant garde cinema scene is in the city’shistoric Centro BEYOND THE district, afew blocks from where the sprawling metropolis was founded by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century. Arickety FAVELAS Tpre-war lifttakes youtothe modestoffice of Daniel Ribeiro, one of Brazil’s newwaveofdirectors, known for giving universal themes a21st-centurytwist. Aleading lightinBrazil’s newwave Indeed, the whole building is ahub for people working in film, with four floors occupied by directors and of directors, Daniel Ribeirohas producers, Ribeiro says. “Mostofthe people here are friends; we all know each woninternational recognitionby other,” says Ribeiro, friendly and relaxed. At 34, he is one of ageneration of mostly millennial directors spawned exploringuniversal themes from by asystem of state-administered funding for cinema thatischanging the face of Brazilian film. angsttosexuality.ByJoeLeahy Exploring subjects thatrangefrom sexualityto middle-class angst, theyrepresent adeparturefrom their Photograph by Luiz Maximiano predecessors, who gave viewers Brazil’s favela thrillers, including City of God (2002) and Elite Squad (2007), and more traditional representations of inequalityand rural poverty,such as Central Station (1998). Thenew generation is also winning recognition on the international stage. Other rising Brazilian film-makers include João Paulo Miranda Maria (34), Eryk Rocha (38) and Kleber Mendonça Filho (47), all of whom were honoured at this year’s Cannes film festival.

54 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES ‘I INTEND TO TELL STORIESANYONE WATCHING WILL THINK, “YEAH, ICAN IDENTIFY WITH THAT”’

forced to care for one of the men’s 10-year-old brother, creating acomplicated situation in which the three must cohabitate. Thefilm won the bestshortfilm prizefor the Generation 14plus juryatthe 2008 Berlin film festival. “Before, the type of cinema thatwas successful, especially internationally,had this eyetowards inequality,”Ribeiro says. “Today, that’snolonger necessarily the case.” Thecause of this change, he says, lies in the rise of Brazil’sleft-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who ruled for eight years between 2003 and 2011. Through aspecial cinema fund, the Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual, created by the Lula da Silvagovernment, the industryhas become somewhatself-sufficient. The government collects taxes from the industry, which go into the fund. Thefund then lends moneybackto makers of films and television series, whoyt repa he loans if their productions makeaprofit. “Theyinvestinvarious lines of film-making —those with commercial potential, which end up sustaining the fund, and those thatwill win prestigeoverseas,”says Ribeiro. Theincrease in funding has led to asteady rise in the number of films, which now come from agreater rangeofstates in Brazil, from Rio Grande do Sul in the south to Amazonas in the north. This breadth of field has in turn fostered adiversityofthemes. “When you had 40 films being made per ,or30year films, you had less incentive for the producers who Out from the crowd finance those films erto tak isks.When thatnumber Daniel Ribeiro, rises to 100 or more, you are opening up the game,” pictured in São Paulo, Ribeiro says. tells storiesofordinary people in neutral Theriskisthatmoreconservative future governments settings could cutthis funding, Brazil’s economic crisis adding pressure. “Inprinciple, it would not appear sensible to destroy,especially during amoment of economic crisis, But fewrepresent the newwavebetter than Ribeiro, an area thatgenerates jobs and revenue,”hesays. whose films tell the stories of ordinarypeople in neutral Coming from adevelopingcountryisnot a settings thatcould almostbeanywhere in the world. serious obstacle to winning recognition overseas for Theplot is revealed through engaging dialogue, rather Brazilian films. While Hollywood remains dominant than the shock and aweofviolence or poverty.Takethe internationally,Brazilian films getshowings at dialogue from an early scene from his firstfeature film, film festivals and social media help to spread their The WayHeLooks (2014). popularity. More important is the overall profile of Thefemale lead, an adolescent schoolgirl called the countryabroad. When Brazil’s economywas Giovanna, is talking by the pool with her friend Léo. growing rapidly afew years ago, curiosityabout the “And whatabout you, don’t you worryabout that?” countryincreased, stimulating interestinits cinema. she asks. “Being adeveloping countryisnot afundamental “About what?” responds Léo. problem,”Ribeiro says. “About passing your entire life without kissing Ribeiro wrote his universitythesis on how the someone?” portrayal of gaycharacters in Brazilian film has evolved “Who’s going to want to kiss me?” retorts Léo. from stereotypical representations to explorations of It could be ascene from anyteenagecoming-of-age themes of human interestthrough characters who drama. But Léo is blind and his firstkiss eventually happen to be gay. “This is whatIdid with The WayHe comes from amale classmate, Gabriel. Looks,” he says. “While the storyshows aboy who is in Thefilm won multiple awards, including twoatthe love with another boy,the theme is really firstlove.” 2014 Berlin film festival —the Teddy Award for the best Next, he is working on afilm about amale and female feature film on lesbian,y, ga bisexual and transgender transgender couple who began dating when theywere topics and the Fipresci juryPanorama prize. adolescents but grow apartafter she enters university Thefeature builds on Ribeiro’s earlier shortfilms, and develops other interests. “I could be doing astory IDon’t Want to Go Back Alone (2010), about the same about transsexuals,”Ribeiro says, “but Iinstead intend to characters, and You, Me andHim (2007), in which two tell astorythatany person watching it will think: ‘Yeah, gayyoung men are contemplating moving in together Ican identifywith that—you leave school and the world when the parents of one of them die. They are then opens up and everything changes.’”

FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES| 55 JUDGES

2. 5.

ART Justin Leverenz 3. In addition to being director of emerging market equitiesatOppenheimerFunds, Justin Leverenz El Anatsui is portfolio manager of the Oppenheimer Throughout El Anatsui’s40-year career as a Developing Markets Fund and Oppenheimer sculptor and teacher —hewasprofessor of Emerging Markets Innovators Fund.Leverenz sculptureand departmental head at the University lived and worked in China formorethanadecade, of Nigeria, Nsukka—hehas addressed numerous and his interestinemerging markets extends social, political and historical concerns, using well beyond investing. That interestled him to adiverse rangeofmedia and processes. His establish the Emerging Voicesawardstorecognise sculptures have been collectedbythe British exceptional talent in literature, film and visual in Museum, London, the CentrePompidou, Paris, emerging market countries. the de Young Museum, San Francisco,the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork,and many others. In 2014,hewas made an honoraryRoyal Michael Skapinker Academician and elected intothe American Michael Skapinker is an associateeditor at the AcademyofArtsand Sciences. Financial Timesand writes aweekly column on business and society.Hejoined the FT in 1986 and 1. Justin Leverenz has held manypositions, including Weekend editor, 2. Michael Skapinker 3. El Anatsui IwonaBlazwick management editor and Special Reports editor. 4. Iwona Blazwick 5. Antonia Carver Iwona Blazwick has been director of the 6. Jan Dalley 7. Koyo Kouoh 8. Xiaolu Guo He wasborn in South Africa andeducated at 9. Sunil Khilnani 10. Lorien Kite Whitechapel GalleryinLondon since 2001,leading Witwatersrand and Cambridge universities. He was 11. YiYunLi its expansion in 2009.Previously she worked awarded theWork Foundation Members’ Awardfor at London’s Tate Modern gallery, co-curating his contribution to theunderstanding of working the inaugural collection displays and Turbine lifein2003,was named WorkWorld Media Awards Hall projects. Blazwick has servedonjuriesfor columnist of the year in 2008,Editorial Intelligence numerous artawards, including the Turner Prizein Awards topbusiness commentator in 2012 and top the UK and Venice Biennale Golden Lion event. She business ethics commentator in 2015. has worked as an independent curator in Europe andJapan and has writtenoncontemporaryartists from around the world. She is chair of the Mayorof 1. 4. London’s cultural strategy group and wasawarded an OBE forservicestoart in 2007. Antonia Carver Antonia Carver wasdirector of ArtDubai from ERICH 2010 to 2016.This August she became the first director of ArtJameel, an arts foundation that AL P SC

supports artists and arts infrastructurethroughout PA the wider Middle East, south Asia and beyond. Based in the United Arab Emirates since 2001, Carver has writtenonMiddle Eastern artand film, and edited booksand journals. In 2004,she joined travelmagazine Bidoun as an editor and later ANNA GORDON; S:

became the director of the Middle Eastern arts TO

organisation’s projects division. PHO

56 |FT.COM/EMERGING-VOICES The IdeaofIndia (7th edn, 2016)and Incarnations: 6. 8. India in 50 Lives (2016), which accompanied his seriesonBBC Radio4. Lorien Kite Lorien Kitehas been bookseditorofthe Financial Timessince2011, overseeing the FT Weekend Reviewsection,reporting on developments in the literaryworld and interviewing writers. He served on the jurypanel forthe 2014 Samuel Johnson prizefor non-fiction. Kitejoinedthe FT in 2000 afteraperiodworking in publishing. He has also worked on the FT’s commentand analysis pages. YiyunLi Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing and movedtothe US FICTION in 1996.Her debut collection, AThousandYears of 7. Good Prayers,won severalawards, including the PEN/Hemingway Awardand the Guardian First XiaoluGuo Book Award.Her bookshave been translated into Novelist and film-maker Xiaolu Guo’s career spans morethan20languages, and twostoriesfrom both China and Britain. Her novels have been her debut collection were made intofeaturefilms. translated intomorethan26languages, including She is acontributing editor to theBrooklyn-based AConcise Chinese-English DictionaryFor Lovers literarymagazine APublic Space and has served (shortlisted forthe Orange Prizefor Fiction) and on literaryjurypanels, including the Man Booker IAmChina (longlisted forthe Bailey’sWomen’s International Prizeand the National Book Prizefor Fiction ). In 2013,she wasnamed as one Award. She lives in Oakland, California. of Granta’sBestofYoung British Novelists. She has also directed severalaward-winning films, 10. including She, aChinese, UFOinHer Eyes and Once Upon aTime Proletarian.Guo is an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK.She livesinLondon and Berlin. JanDalley SunilKhilnani Jan Dalleyhas been arts editor of the Financial Sunil Khilnani is director of the India Instituteat Timessince 2004.She joined the FT in 1999 as King’s College London. He wasStarr Foundation literaryeditor.Previously,she wasliteraryeditor Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of of the Independent on Sunday foreight years, Advance International StudiesinWashington DC, and beforebecomingajournalistshe worked in and director of south Asia studies. He wasalso publishing. She has judged literaryprizes including professor of politics at Seikei University,Tokyo, theBooker Prize, the WhitbreadBook awards, and afellowofChrist’sCollege,Cambridge. the Hawthornden Prizeand the EncorePrize. His publications include Arguing Revolution: She wrotethe book Black Hole: Money, Myth and The Intellectual Left in Postwar France (1993), Empire,astudy of the Black Hole of Calcutta, published by Penguin in 2006. 9. 11. Koyo Kouoh Koyo Kouoh is the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company, acentrefor the arts in Dakar, Senegal, and the curator of the 1:54 Contemporary African ArtFair in London and NewYork.Besides maintaining atheoretical, exhibition and residency programme at RAWMaterial Company, she works as acurator,adviser and judge internationally.In collaboration with curator and writer Rasha Salti, Kouoh is currently working on “Saving Bruce Lee: African and Arab Cinema in the EraofSoviet Cultural Diplomacy”,aresearch, exhibition and publication project. She lives and worksinDakar and occasionally in Basel, Switzerland.

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Elif Shafak 3. 5. Elif Shafak writes in both English and Turkish and has published 14 books, nine of which are novels, including The BastardofIstanbul, The FortyRulesofLove and her genre-crossing memoir Black Milk.Her bookshavebeen translated intomorethan40languages. Shafak blends western and eastern traditions of storytelling, bringing out the voicesofwomen, minorities, subcultures and immigrants. Her worksdraws on different cultures and cities, and reflects astronginterestinhistory, philosophy, culture, mysticism, intercultural dialogue and gender equality.Shafakisapolitical scientist and acommentator.She livesinLondon with her twochildren.

FILM 1. 6. Nigel Andrews Nigel Andrewshas been the Financial Times’ film critic since 1973.Hehas been aregular broadcaster forBBC radio and is author of the books True Myths: The Life and TimesofArnold Schwarzenegger and Jaws.Andrewshas twice been named Critic of the Year in British Press awards. He is afellowofthe Royal Society of Arts. YuhangHo Yuhang Ho wonanFT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging VoicesAward in 2015 forhis shortfilm Trespassed.Hewas born in Petaling Jaya,Malaysia. He studied engineering at Iowa StateUniversity in 1. the US and worked in television production on his and television. Her first featurefilm Madeinusa Elif Shafak return to Malaysia. His debut feature Min in 2003 wasreleased in 2006.Three yearslater The Milk 2. wonthe Special JuryPrize at the Festival des3 of Sorrow wonthe Berlin film festival Golden Nigel Andrews 3. Continents in Nantes.His latestfilm is Mrs K. Bear andwas nominated forthe Best Foreign Yuhang Ho Language Film Oscar. At Berlin in 2012,her short 4. film Loxoro wonaTeddy Award. Claudia Llosa Claudia Llosa 5. Peruvian director,producerand screenwriter MiraNair 6. Claudia Llosa studied communications sciences Mira Nair Pablo Trapero at the University of Lima, Peru,and scriptwriting MiraNair’s debutfeature Salaam Bombay! received at the TAIinMadrid, before working in advertising morethan25international awardsincluding an Oscar nomination forBestForeign Language Film in 1988 and the Camérad’OrAward at the Cannes 2. 4. film festival. Most recently,she directed Disney’s Queen of Katwe.In2008, she used the profits from Salaam Bombay! to create the Salaam Baalak Trust, which workswith street children in India.

ERICH PabloTrapero AL P Director Pablo Traperowas born in Argentina in SC

PA 1971.His first feature, Mundo Grúa (1999), wonthe Critics Prizeatthe Venice film festival. In 2008, Leonera wasnominated forthe Palme d’Or at Cannesand returned to Cannes with Carancho

NA GORDON; (2010) and WhiteElephant (2012). Traperohas sat on juriesatVenice,San Sebastián and Locarno, S: AN

TO among others. His latestfilm, The Clan (2015), won

PHO the Silver Lion forbestdirectoratVenice.

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