Taina Tervonen & Ubah Cristina Ali Farah

Migration and exile

From fiction to reality, from literature to music, authors Taina Tervonen and Ubah Cristina Ali Farah will meet for the first time to explore, echo and expand upon the themes at the heart of the opera Ali, in a talk moderated by Rym Khene.

Last year, French-Finnish journalist Taina Tervonen published Les Veilleurs. Cinq vigies autour des frontières, a book profiling five citizens who help people determined to make the crossing to Europe. This investigation relates what these watchers witness every day: men, women and children who disappear without a trace, amid total indifference, at the gates of our continent. 

Italian-Somali author Ubah Cristina Ali Farah made her fame with her debut novel Madre Piccola, praised for its accuracy and sensitivity. In it, she gives a voice to the exiles of the Somali diaspora, weaving together the broken threads of human connections through silences, choices, alliances and secrets. An intimate and moving novel by an author who worked for many years as an interpreter for asylum seekers in Italy.

The event will take place in our Grand Foyer, with a musical performance by the Chœur Cassandra Koor.