Women Authors

"(there must have been other writers whom you regarded as models.) NG: In my adolescence, the Russians were tremendously important to me. More than anyone, Chekhov. Of the Italians, Svevo, the Moravia of Gli Indifferenti. When I started writing these were the writers I kept before me."

"Style is not something that can be improvised: one has to construct it, to make it."

"in my own work...there’s an important sense of the visual, of the visualized. I see it all so vividly. It’s not that I don’t see what I imagine. If I don’t see it then I can’t write anything."

"I’m not really a poet. It’s only once in a while that what I have to say seems to find its best expression in a poem. But I do read a number of poets—Montale, Sandro Penna, Sabba."

"What we must remember above all in the education of our children is that their love of life should never weaken."

"(Are there other English language writers who mean a lot to you?) NG: Well, of course, Shakespeare. And I love George Eliot as well. I’ve read the major authors, but in Italian, not English. Perhaps my favorite English novelist is Jane Austen. I hardly know contemporary American literature. The two American authors I love most, who are by now dead, alas, are Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor. And then I love Fitzgerald and Hemingway—especially the Hemingway of the stories...When Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology came out in Italian, suddenly there was widespread interest in North American writing. But even before that Pavese was busy introducing us all to the great American writers."

"dialect is really impossible to translate adequately."

"My Jewish identity became extremely important to me from the moment the Jews began to be persecuted. At that point I became aware of myself as a Jew. But I came from a mixed marriage—my father was Jewish, my mother Catholic. My parents were atheists and therefore chose not to give us, the children, any religious instruction. They were totally non-observant. You might say that a Hebrew spirit dominated the household in the sense that my father had a very strong, very authoritarian character. And I suppose it’s true that many of the family friends were Jews, but many were not. So, while I did not have any sort of formal Jewish upbringing, I nevertheless felt my Jewishness very acutely during the war years (my first husband, Leone Ginzburg, was a Jew) and after the war, when it became known what had been done to the Jews in the camps by the Nazis. Suddenly my Jewishness became very important to me."

"they laughed a little and were very friendly together, the three of them, Anna, Emanuele and Giustino; and they were pleased to be together, the three of them, thinking of all those who were dead, and of the long war and the sorrow and noise and confusion, and of the long, difficult life which they saw in front of them now, full of all the things they did not know how to do.”"

"Fanfares of trumpets usually announced only small, futile things, it was a way fate had of teasing people. You felt a great exaltation and heard a loud fanfare of trumpets in the sky. But the serious things of life, on the contrary, took you by surprise, they spurted up all of a sudden like water."

"But it was incredible how fear and danger never produced ignoble words but always true ones, words that were torn from your very heart."

"Groups? Movements? I don’t really think these groups exist. I don’t think in Italy there even are such things as currents or trends. The whole scene is really much too chaotic for such groups to form and stay together as separate entities."

"Human relationships have to be rediscovered every day. We have to remember constantly that every kind of meeting with our neighbor is a human action and so it is always evil or good, true or deceitful, a kindness or a sin."

"The course introduced me to new performance principles and techniques. It gave me an appreciation for performance art. However, it crucially highlighted that as much as I enjoyed performing work, writing was where I thrived more. Researching and creating scripts is a genuine passion."

"I've had many proud moments over the years. When I was 17, I represented the UK with Leeds Young Authors at Brave New Voices International Poetry Slam in New York."

"In 2014, my first play BOI BOI IS DEAD won the Channel 4 Playwrights Scheme and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize."

"My plays are published by Bloomsbury. My first narrative short, THE ANCESTORS premiered at the Pan African Film Festival in LA in February 2023."

"This month, the spin off anime Castlevania: Nocturne premiered on Netflix. I am one of the screenwriters on the series."

"The performance of my final project, HOME HAS DIED was my favourite memory. The project was a tribute to family members who had passed away. It touched on migration, disconnection, grief and healing. It was my first ever solo show. My mum joined me on stage. She played the drum and sang."

"The notion of discovery is very important to hold on to. Sometimes we think we know who we are or what an idea is; or we are debilitated by what it isn't or what we aren't. But by remaining in a space of discovery you'll be open to experiment, to ask for help, to throw things out and receive the unknown, to collaborate with other practitioners and to put yourself forward for opportunities. You'll be scared, but still do it and discover what comes."

"Where possible, I took part in various development programmes and workshops. These helped me move through various mediums and build networks over the years. As a result of my industry experience, I'd be invited to lead workshops for arts organisations, theatres, schools and universities. I built a teaching portfolio while simultaneously continuing to do my vocation. When the position at MMU came up, it welcomed applicants who had industry experience where a PhD was missing. I knew I was qualified for the job."

"At the time when I did my course it was attached to a Theatre Studies Foundation Degree at Leeds College. I needed to do a top up year to get a BA. The previous course has been more traditional theatre and the year at Beckett introduced me to performance art."

"I recently became a Lecturer in Scriptwriting at Manchester Metropolitan University. Previously, I worked at the University of Manchester (Drama), Warwick University (Poetry) and guest lectured at Leeds Beckett (Performance). My teaching is attached to my work as a poet, screenwriter, playwright, dramaturg and director. I have been working as a freelancer for 15 years. I have performed poetry and competed in international poetry slams. My theatre work has been produced across the UK, France, Germany, South Africa, Zimbabwe and USA. I have made short films and produced radio plays. I have purposely worked on multidisciplinary projects to challenge myself as a writer and grow my skills."

"Сінокосна трава у корінні іще жива, але стеблами мертва не-боли-голова. Тратить кров зеленаву, не знає мовчати ні мовити. Позбуваючись мови, прибувають на силі слова.."

"I wish Dakar is a clean city much more cultural"

"Art is a way of externalising this that I feel deep inside me that this"

"What is important to me In my work is to exceed my limit to set myself challenges and be able to achieve them"

"I'm happy when I finished my novel and seen my family after a good day of very exhausting works"

"...Marjana Savka’s poems ― lyrical, exuberant, but underwritten by a tough-minded skepticism... sum up this middle generation’s difficult and lasting achievement.”"

"Що змінилося, сестро? Куля повітряна стала свинцевою. Метафора – мертвою."

"I talk about the things that grandparents ran away from, the things that wouldn't have let them survive and become actual grandparents had they decided not to suffer, leave everything they loved behind—and flee."

"Democracy is not a gift but a prize that has to be won over and over again, and it is worth fighting for."

"Ось Господь. Він убитий лежить у труні. Воскресіння злетіло, здається, із графіка. Він був волонтером в останній найгіршій війні."

"Everyone who receives power involuntarily feels omnipotent…superior to all others who fantasize about freedom. But what do we know about the dependencies of those who are themselves omnipotent?"

"Until the last sentence of writing it is always uncertainty"

"Halyna Kruk has found a language to ingest violence and horror — blunt and eloquent, witty and aphoristic, her language is layered and electric as it takes on the daily dislocations of Russia’s barbaric war on Ukraine. Idiosyncratic and universal, these poems bring us necessary news as only poetry can."

"In Ukraine, death has become an integral part of everyday life"

"The death of these people will leave a gaping wound in our souls, in our culture, science, economy, industry and society. This is not a metaphor; I don’t know of any poetry that can heal this wound"

"What and how do we remember and what do we forget? What do we want to remember and forget? How does history become a legend and legend a myth? Sofia Andrukhovych reveals to the reader an interlace of stories about human destinies, which form a mosaic of collective Ukrainian memory. A very timely book for modern Ukraine. After all, the future belongs to those who are not afraid to look back and look in the mirror."

"We stopped digging deep long ago in this uncertain field of ours-yours because all kinds of junk can turn up: human bones, horses’ heads, unexploded mines"

"Ні! Я жива! Я буду вічно жити! Я в серці маю те, що не вмирає."

"Ні, я хочу крізь сльози сміятись, Серед лиха співати пісні, Без надії таки сподіватись, Жити хочу! Геть, думи сумні!"

"А ви думали, що Україна так просто. Україна – це супер. Україна – це ексклюзив. По ній пройшли всі катки історії. На ній відпрацьовані всі види випробувань. Вона загартована найвищим гартом. В умовах сучасного світу їй немає ціни."

"He who has not lived in the midst of a storm does not know the value of strength"

"Нації вмирають не від інфаркту. Спочатку їм відбирає мову."

"Жах не в тому, що щось змінеться, - жах у тому, що все може залишитися так само."

"Lesya Ukrainka set Ukrainian culture free from the image of provinciality imposed on it by discourse of the Russian Empire around the turn of the 20th century."

"Людям не те що позакладало вуха – людям позакладало душі."

"It takes a lifetime to understand that long ago the grown-ups lied to you, that in fact nothing living, neither a flower, nor a rabbit, nor a person, nor a country, can, in fact, be had: they can only be destroyed, which is the one way to confirm they have been possessed."

"Ukrainians are fighting to free Europe from the spectre of totalitarianism"