SWC: International Event Monica Cantieni & Donal McLaughlin

Monica Cantieni is head of multimedia in the Culture Department of Swiss Radio and Television. She and her translator Donal McLaughlin will be reading from her acclaimed novel The Encyclopaedia of Good Reasons which was shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize in 2011.

‘My father bought me from the council for 365 francs,’ recalls the narrator, a young girl, an immigrant to Switzerland whose adoption is yet to be finalized. Her new community speaks German, a language foreign to her, and she collects words and phrases in matchboxes. Though her relationship with her adoptive parents is sometimes strained, she bonds with her adoptive grandfather, and together they create the eponymous Encyclopaedia of Good Reasons. Set at the time of the 1970 Swiss referendum on immigration, Cantieni introduces us to colourful characters who struggle to make Switzerland their home: Eli, the Spanish bricklayer; Toni, the Italian factory worker with movie star looks; Madame Jelisaweta, the Yugoslav hairdresser; and Milena, the mysterious girl in the wardrobe. This is a book with a warm heart, and rarely has a young girl’s narrative been so uproariously hilarious and so deeply moving.

Born in Derry, Donal McLaughlin is the author of An Allergic Reaction to National Anthems & Other Stories, his second collection – Beheading the Virgin Mary & Other Stories – was published by Dalkey Archive in Spring 2014. Known for his bilingual edition of the poetry of Stella Rotenberg (Shards) and his translations of over 100 German-Swiss writers for the “New Swiss Writing” anthologies.