City Lights, Fern Books, Center for the Art of Translation, & Villa Albertine San Francisco celebrate the publication of "Like a Sky Inside" by Jakuta Alikavazovic – translated from the French by Daniel Levin Becker, published by Fern Books. 

Purchase here: https://citylights.com/european-literature/like-a-sky-inside/


In March 2020, a young woman spends the night in the Louvre. At home: her nine-month-old son. In her overnight bag: a notebook, a toiletry kit, a duvet, a cube of nougat, & something that shouldn’t be there. In her head: memories of the Venus de Milo, of land art & the American road, of romance & travel & immigration & war — & of her father, who after each of their many visits to the Louvre would ask just how she’d go about stealing the Mona Lisa.


Jakuta Alikavazovic is a French writer of Bosnian & Montenegrin origins. She has received the Prix Goncourt for a first novel & the Prix Médicis for non-fiction, among other European awards & nominations. She is a columnist for the newspaper Libération & the translator into French of authors including David Foster Wallace & Toni Morrison.


JiaJing Liu is a translator (English-Chinese-French), writer, & editor who lives in San Francisco. She studied translation at Université Aix-Marseille, & was a researcher at the Beijing bureau of Libération. Her writings have appeared in Popula, Civil, The Awl, LEAP, The Art Newspaper, & other publications. She recently served as assistant curator for the exhibition, Shifting Fields: Contemporary Chinese Painting, at the Stanford Art Gallery. She is the development manager at Heyday, an independent, nonprofit publisher in Berkeley, California.

Originally broadcast from City Lights' Poetry Room on Thursday, May 2, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. citylights.com/foundation

Jakuta Alikavazovic in conversation with JiaJing Liu

The official podcast for City Lights Publishers & Booksellers in San Francisco. Featuring readings and archives. Hosted by City Lights events coordinator Peter Maravelis.

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