Can Beauty Save the World?
Part of the Literature Festival “Poor and Rich”

A collaboration with

Literaturhaus Zurich

Visiting Professorship for French Literature and Culture

Details

Venue:
Literaturhaus Zurich
Limmatquai 62
8001 Zürich

Tickets are availiable here.

Language:
Conversation in English
Reading in German

In 2025, the Literaturhaus Zürich will host the 10^th Days of International Literature. In this conversation, Kim Thúy will share her reflections on the festival’s central theme of “Rich and Poor.”

Kim Thúy spent her early years in Vietnam before fleeing to Canada with her parents in 1978. She later studied linguistics and translation. Her debut book, Ru (2009; English: The Sound of Foreignness, translated from French by Andrea Alvermann and Brigitte Grosse, Kunstmann 2013), recounts her experiences as the child of a wealthy family in Vietnam, her forced expulsion and escape, life in a Malaysian refugee camp, and, ultimately, her arrival in Canada.

Her subsequent works earned her international recognition and numerous literary awards. In addition to her writing career, Thúy has worked as a translator, lawyer, restaurateur, and food critic for radio and television. In 2011, she co-authored À toi with French-Slovakian-Swiss writer Pascal Janovjak—an exchange reflecting on the beauty of the world and the fragility of human existence.

In spring 2025, Kim Thúy serves as Visiting Professor of French Language and Culture at ETH Zurich. Her lectures will explore the essence of a fulfilling life, the coexistence of joy and sorrow, wealth and deprivation, and the abundance found in beauty—themes that will also be central to this panel discussion.