Using Literature to Decipher Global Divides and Future Conflicts

This conference is in French only.

As part of his inaugural lecture as Writer-in-Residence, Blaise Ndala invites us on a journey through major literary works that shed light on the crises, divisions, and upheavals of our time. Join one of the most influential Francophone authors of his generation for an engaging and thought-provoking discussion.

Ever since human beings learned to live in society, no conflict has begun with the first shot fired. Whatever form it takes, conflict emerges in places that all too often elude the vigilance of experts, the intuition of diplomats, and the certainty of prophets: in minds, in memories, in discourse, and in silence.

In these turbulent times, as borders become fault lines, identities grow more polarized, collective memories are weaponized, and empires are reshaped, this lecture offers an opportunity to step back. It invites us to leave behind the relentless flow of daily news and turn instead to literature.

What insights can literature provide to help us decipher the very nature of the chaos into which our world seems to have plunged over the course of a single generation? Drawing on works ranging from Homer and George Orwell to Aimé Césaire, Mahmoud Darwish, Mariama Bâ, Toni Morrison, and Salman Rushdie, Blaise Ndala explores the many forces that have shaped human imagination across centuries. Through these landmark texts, he examines the underlying fractures that continue to unsettle our societies and argues for the importance of reading them with clarity and lucidity.

Perhaps then the words of Antonio Gramsci, written under Italian fascism in the interwar period, will seem less enigmatic:

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.”