PROGRAMM

ANDREA TOMPA IN CONVERSATION WITH CARL HENRIK FREDRIKSSON
SAMSTAG / SATURDAY, 27.09.2025 / 15h30
AKADEMIE DER BILDENDEN KÜNSTE WIEN, AULA

Globalization has led to a heightened awareness of matters of identity and cultural belonging. Heated arguments are now unfolding about cultural claims and the right (or even obligation) to embrace the uniqueness and diversity of one’s particular culture. Why does it really matter to have an understanding of one’s own community? And how important is it to also view these relations within a historical perspective? In her novels, award-winning Hungarian writer ANDREA TOMPA explores the dynamics of identity and its profound relation to storytelling. In conversation with journalist and literary critic CARL HENRIK FREDRIKSSON she will discuss why the desire for cultural belonging is inextricably bound to the triad of power, control, and freedom. 

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ANDREA TOMPA is an award-winning novelist and member of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts. Born into a Hungarian-speaking family in the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca, Tompa is strongly influenced by questions of identity and belonging. Her most successful novel Omertà (Jelenkor, 2017) won numerous prizes (German translation by Terézia Mora, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2022; English translation by Bernard Adams, Seagull Books, 2024). Set amid the complex realities of 1950s/60s Romania, the novel sheds light on a regime that sought to extinguish all cultural identities.