Amid the horrible reality we have been enduring for the last two years, I was privileged to experience one of the most exciting and enriching encounters of my life — being part of the Writers’ Residency at Château de Lavigny.
I have not yet had the time to fully reflect on that one month, perhaps because I have never before felt such a mixture of joy, richness, and love all at once. The château itself, and the beautiful Sophie, whose presence fills every corner with grace, gave me the feeling of being blessed from the very first moment to the last.
Yet even a beautiful château — with its history, its walls still breathing with the ink and words of writers who lived and dreamed there — would be nothing without the people who share it. Fabienne, Laline, Christilla, and Seul transformed that place into what felt like paradise. And paradise, I have learned, only exists when it is shared with beautiful souls.
During our final week, each of us presented a piece of our work. I had spent the month translating my novel On the Trail of Maryam, and it felt somehow odd to think of life as something natural, even while surrounded by Swiss serenity. The heaviness of what is happening back home never left me; it breathes through the novel itself.
I chose to read from the chapter of Maryam of Gaza. What I wrote back in 2019 felt as relevant now as ever — except then, I believed my imagination was vivid enough to invent scenes and emotions. Today, I see it differently: imagination is merely a softer way of telling the truth. Reality, as always, is far harsher than anything we could recreate.
Link to the reading below:
https://youtu.be/M8vZA8SqN_Y?si=vW7NXPzb1d2ZWfPi