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Photo: Dieter Kubli Bilgerverlag
Simon Froehling
Simon Froehling, born in 1978, is a Swiss-Australian dual citizen and lives in Zurich. A graduate of the Literature Institute in Biel, he made a name for himself in the noughties mainly as a playwright and poet before his first novel, ‘Lange Nächte Tag’, was published in 2010. After a break due to illness, he returned to writing in 2017 as Writer in Residence at the Deutsches Haus at New York University. His second novel ‘Dürrst’ was published in September 2022 and was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize. For the rest of his work, Froehling has been awarded the Network - Gay Leadership Culture Prize, the St. Gallen Autorentage Audience Award, the Société Suisse des Auteurs Drama Prize and a Heinz-Weder Recognition Prize for Poetry, among others. In addition to his work as an author, he also works as a dramaturge at Tanzhaus Zürich.
My motivation for taking part in the film adaptation: ‘Even with my first novel, I often heard that I write very cinematically. Now I'm looking forward to exploring this potential in a professional setting with my second book and finding translations not only for the story, but also for the formal decisions that characterise ‘Dürrst’ and which can be read in part as a search for queer narrative strategies. It's a privilege to be able to do this in tandem instead of alone at my desk.’
Work text: ‘Dürrst’
Author: Simon Froehling
Publisher: Bilgerverlag und Diogenes (from May)
Andreas Durrer becomes a celebrated artist rather by chance - but as ‘Dürrst’ he soon threatens to drown in himself. His path from a teenager who turns his back on his upper-class origins, through squats, countless parties, openings and beds with mostly strange men, to a psychiatric clinic and back out again, is not a linear one. Life is a wild ride on which Dürrst occasionally loses sight of his goal, but almost never loses hope.
‘As a young adult, you wanted to see yourself as a spontaneous and chaotic person, and it took a long time before you could admit to yourself that you only flourish in routine, that you need everyday rituals.’ This is not the only realisation that Andreas Durrer, known as Dürrst, has made over the years. His career began unexpectedly, with an installation for James Baldwin's ‘Giovanni's Room’ making him a sought-after artist almost overnight. But then the pressure for new works increased and the days when he was unable to get up became more frequent. Artistic flights of fancy alternate with psychological nosedives, just as Dürrst also changes his accommodation - the flat share in Zurich, the small flat in Athens, the hotel rooms in Cairo - and thus his lovers, although he is actually in search of true love. Simon Froehling's second novel ‘Dürrst’ is an unsparing, witty and loving book about a sometimes helpless and yet great hero.
Languages: German
Direct link to the online portal for applications to Simon Froehling
Important note: Applications must be submitted exclusively via the Migros Culture Percentage online application portal. If you do not yet have a login for the application portal, you first need to create one before you can access the application form.
Photo: Christoph Oeschger
Gianna Molinari
Gianna Molinari, born in Basel in 1988, lives in Zurich. She studied Literary Writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel and Modern German Literature at the University of Lausanne. She is co-founder of the art action group ‘Literatur für das, was passiert’ and the authors' collective “Rauf”. Her first novel ‘Hier ist noch alles möglich’ was published by Aufbau Verlag in 2018. She received the Robert Walser Prize and the Clemens Brentano Prize for the novel and was nominated for the German and Swiss Book Prize 2018. Her second novel ‘Hinter der Hecke die Welt’ was published by Aufbau Verlag in 2023.
My motivation for participating in the film adaptation: Where do we intervene? Where do we expand? What do we let go of? Where do we shift? Where is there room for gaps? Where do the characters, the dramaturgy of the text develop? I am very much looking forward to a process of editing, of transforming my novel text into a film adaptation, to getting to know new points of view and tools, to the dialogue and to thinking and working together.
Work text: ‘Behind the hedge the world’
Author: Gianna Molinari
Publisher: Im Aufbau
In Gianna Molinari's second novel ‘Behind the Hedge the World’, a multitude of the current state of man and nature is shown. It is quite simple, says this novel, look at what is happening here and then look at the world. Gianna Molinari's language is always empathetic, without running the risk of tipping over into kitsch, and the dialogues are marked by subtle humour. Poetry and politics flow into each other in this calm, almost stoic story, because everything is interwoven, just like in real life.
A village is afraid of disappearing. That is why it takes measures: The hedge, which is popular with tourists, is tended and cared for, and the village treasury is regularly checked. Above all, however, they look after Pina and Lobo, because the children are the future of the village. But Pina and Lobo have long since stopped growing. While the village waits for the children's growth spurts, Pina's mother in the Arctic observes how the ice is melting and borders are shifting.
The narrative moves between these poles; here the confines of the village with its tight-knit community, there the vastness of the Arctic, deserted and lonely. While Pina's father Karsten invests in a snack machine to boost the village coffers, Dora reflects on past and future Arctic expeditions. And then, shortly before the annual hedge festival, a pest infestation. ‘They appeared out of nowhere, the pests. Large European weevils, for sure. She has never seen them here before, not in all these years,’ says Mrs Werk, the village gardener. A little later it gets even worse: the hedge catches fire. Although the fire is quickly extinguished, the damage remains. This mysterious arson attack not only weakens much-needed village tourism, but also village morale. Gianna Molinari describes the changes that inevitably follow when a component of a structure shifts - in communities as well as in ecosystems. The tourists stop coming, Dora is far away, and someone else disappears quietly and secretly from the village, leaving behind a painful void
Quotes from the book:
They are incredibly beautiful, the drill cores, filled with sediments from the depths, said the marine researcher. You can read history in them, you can see where a volcano has ejected a layer of ash, where a meteorite has hit the earth, you can watch the dinosaurs die out, so to speak, or recognise where the climate has warmed up.
Still terra incognita, said the sponsors of the expedition. Perhaps, they said, up in the north, in the interior of the world's largest island, there are ice-free areas, land where roots penetrate the soil, where bushes grow, where life would be possible and cultivation and prospecting and domination would be possible.
Languages: German
Direct link to the online portal for applications to Gianna Molinari
Important note: Applications must be submitted exclusively via the Migros Culture Percentage online application portal. If you do not yet have a login for the application portal, you first need to create one before you can access the application form.
Photo: Noémi Desarzens
Fanny Desarzens
Fanny Desarzens was born on a hot August Friday, the 13th of 1993. She has lived in Lausanne for ten years, but grew up in the countryside in the canton of Vaud. As a child, she mostly spent her summer holidays in the mountains.
In 2018, Fanny completed her Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at the HEAD in Geneva. After this Geneva experience, she threw herself into literary work.
Galel, her first book, was awarded a Swiss Literature Prize and the Terra nova Prize from the Schiller Foundation in 2023. Chesa Seraina, her second book, wins the Prix Ève of the Académie Romande. Her next novel, Ce qu'il reste de tout ça, will be published in August 2024.
Fanny Desarzens is currently working on various texts and projects as well as her fourth novel.
Motivation for participating in the film adaptation: ‘When I write, images appear to me and my text simply becomes a film that runs. With this collaboration, Chesa Seraina could be reinvented, with a different point of view than mine, a different voice than mine - to create a new language.
Writing is a profoundly solitary act for me; working in pairs would be an enriching experience because it would mean joining forces in the name of a shared value, namely the importance of telling a story.
Work text: ‘Chesa Seraine’
Author: Fanny Desarzens
Publisher: Edition Slatkine, 2024
Une jeune femme se perd dans sa vingtaine. Un jour, des souvenirs lui reviennent ; ceux d’une enfance brisée par l’incendie de Chesa Seraina, sa maison. Le feu a fait disparaître la mémoire du lieu ; elle décide de reconstruire ce que les flammes ont anéanti.
Elena travaille dans un vieux cinéma dans une ville où « tout est proche » et elle vit dans un studio dépouillé, sans aucune décoration, qui représente parfaitement le vide qu'elle ressent. Sur les épaules d'Elena repose un fardeau dont elle n'arrive pas à se débarrasser : l'incendie de la maison de son enfance, que ses parents avaient construite et appelée « Chesa Seraina » pour qu'elle « soit bien à eux ». Chesa Seraina – Maison Sereine en romanche – demeure dans la mémoire de la protagoniste comme un petit et intime coin de paradis, un « monde à l’intérieur d’un autre ». Elena et sa soeur Rose ont grandi là, dans ce jardin détaché du monde, jouant à l'ombre de son arbre et en compagnie de Luf, le chien de la famille. Les pièces de la maison étaient remplies de meubles et d'objets des grands-parents et arrière-grands-parents, de précieux petits trésors passés de génération en génération, faisant de la maison un paradis. Rien ne subsiste de cette vie idyllique, le feu a tout emporté, et Elena ne sait plus quels souvenirs de son passé sont réels et lesquels sont le fruit de son imagination.
Un jour, soudainement, elle quitte son poste au cinéma et remet son studio, malgré la consternation de ses parents et de sa soeur. Ella a décidé de reconstruire Chesa Seraina. En dépit de toutes les oppositions, elle met son projet à exécution. Bien loin d'être une experte en matière de construction, Elena a besoin d'aide et se tourne d'abord vers d'anciens contacts de ses parents : Vincent le charpentier, son fils Sylvain et Renarde, la menuisière. Durant le processus de la reconstruction, ce ne sont pas seulement les parois de la maison qui sont reconstruites, mais les rapports entre les personnes, et avec eux les liens avec un passé qui semblait perdu à jamais. Elena, qui au début de l’histoire était une petite fille maigre et sans un véritable but, devient de plus en plus forte et musclée. Sa vie retrouve ainsi de la couleur et du sens. Chesa Seraina est un roman d’apprentissage où une jeune femme se métamorphose parallèlement à la maison qu’elle reconstruit.
Citation tirée du livre :
« D’abord je ne vois rien. Puis j’aperçois la façade. Elle a tenu. Elle est noire de suie mais elle est debout. La porte est par terre. Les trois autres murs n’ont aucune trace de flammes (...) On dirait une maison de poupée, à laquelle il manque des murs pour qu’on puisse voir dedans. »
Direct link to the online portal for applications to Fanny Desarzens
Important note: Applications must be submitted exclusively via the Migros Culture Percentage online application portal. If you do not yet have a login for the application portal, you first need to create one before you can access the application form.
