Senthuran Varatharajah is an award-winning German novelist of Sri Lankan origin. His debut novel Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen won several awards.  In his book, he writes insightfully about origins and arrival, remembrance and forgetting, and about the cracks in our lives which only time can reveal.

At the session, he discussed his work but focused largely on language. “In literature, there’s no right or wrong language. We have to consider the language in which we consider as right” he said,

“I don’t consider myself as a writer who has a problem with how loosely language is used in the modern times. I really think that language is something that is so flexible!”

We also spoke to a few of the audience members to get their thoughts about the session;

“I thought it was thought provoking. He gave me lots of thoughts about language and where it comes from and where it can go” – Sue

“I really liked his perspective on space and to what extent the body and presence can affect literature. I thought it was an interesting way of looking at it” – Azara

“A very interesting session and very inspiring” – Francis

“It was fascinating and really interesting and insightful” – Victoria

“I thought the most important bit of the session was at the end where he spoke about people being accepting and I just loved the way he blends language” – Brenda

“The session was really good. It really considered the story from a person who has been through the refugee crisis and listening to it from a literary perspective was interesting” – Vikram