Another discussion / interview with Patrick Banga, the young Romano author who got a coveted Czch literary prize for his first novel.
An interview of the author of a book, the anthropologist Lise Foisneau, who recently published a powerful book on the result of four years of investigation in the company of Roma from Provence.
A one-of-a-kind library in the Balkans opened in 2020 in Zagreb. Entirely dedicated to the Roma, their history, their literature and their culture, this space is open to everyone.
Being a Rom in the Czech Republic is really difficult. Parick Banga was beaten by the police in his youth. He comes from Žižkov in Prague and is 41 years old. He is in charge of blogs at iDNES.cz, at the same time runs an IT business and plays in a swing band in his spare time. Banga received the Magnesia Litera literary award for his coming-of-age story.
Another article in the press about the Romano journalist Patrick Banga whose first book won the prestigious Czech Magnesia Litera award in the new author category.
It does not please certain people. According to the article, Patrik Banga now reads almost every day that he bribed the entire jury of the Magnesia Litera award. Many people cannot accept the fact that the book award went to Rom.
Bad
“I am sincere and not politically correct,” says Patrik Banga, author of the autobiographical novel titled Skutečná cesta ven – The real way out. This book, which traces the eventful life of a Roma child and adolescent in the effervescence of the 1990s, won its author the Magnesia litera prize for the first novel.
Three Roma recently won prizes in the Czech Republic. Patrick Banga, a Romano journalist won the prestigious Magnesia Litera literary prize in the new authors category; Renata Berkyová, a historian who works on the Holocaust of Roma won a 4 month months scholarship at the Washington Holocaust Museum; and finally, the actor Marsell Bendig won the Czech Lion for supporting actor for his role in the film Banger.
Well done!
A posthumous book entitled “Tsiganes” by Patrick Williams, a French anthropology professor who died in January at the age of 73 has just been published.
We definitively disagree with the title, which is typical of the French confusion about Roma.
The Romano Journalist and writer recently published his first book called “The Real Way Out”, which won the prestigious Czech Magnesia Litera Award in the Debut category on Monday.
As a Kid, an educational counsellor predicted to him in elementary school that he would become a parasite, and the police already assigned him the role of a criminal at the age of five.
Well, wrong predictions …
On the occasion of International Roma Day, the 26th edition of the Romano suno / Roma Dream competition was launched a week ago, in which Roma speakers can express themselves creatively and publicly in their mother tongue. Moreover, thanks to the competition texts, the general public can also take a closer look at the world of the Roma. Since 1996, the competition has been organized by the non-profit company Nová škola.
33 books are nominated for the prestigious Czech Magnesia Litera award for the year 2022. Among them, a book by a Romano author, Patrick Banga entitle “True Way Out”.
An article on 4 books about exceptional women. What is truly exceptional is that one of this book is one written by a Czech Romni Elena Lacková’s called “I was born under a happy star”. The first author is Elena Lacková with her memoirs, the second is the Czech romani studies professor Milena Hubschmannová, who recorded them all, transcribed them and prepared them for printing.
The so-called “Hungarian” Roma have lived in France since the end of the 19th century. From the article, it is not clear from which group they are, but they are most probably Lovara.
By classifying them as “gens du voyage” as soon as they continue to circulate in caravans, the administration obliges them to live in “reception areas” often located near polluted industrial areas. Through a caravan ethnography, the anthropologist Lise Foisneau describes their attachment to places, the invisible traumas of the Second World War, the transmission of memory. But also the police and administrative hunt, and the search for places to stop. Despite the persecutions of the 20th century and the increasing privatization of public space, these companies have been constantly reconfiguring their worlds for 150 years. Lise Foisneau’s book Kumpania: living and resisting in gadjo country describes its flesh and vivacity.
Jo Clement, a lecturer at Northumbria University, recently published a poetry collection that has been nominated for the prestigious John Pollard Foundation Poetry Prize.
She also was an editor in the ERIAC published book “Wagtail: The Roma Women’s Poetry Anthology”.
The Romani actress Alžbeta Ferencová was present at the launch of Elena Lacková’s book entitled “I was born under a lucky star” which was published for the first time in Slovak, 30 years after its first publication. Alžbeta is Elena’s great-grand daughter. Elena was the first Romni to publish a book in Romanes in Slovakia.
A review of the book by Otto Rosenberg, a Sinto that was sent to Auschwitz called “A Gypsy in Auschwitz”.
Véronique Le Goaziou, sociologist, has just published a latest book entitled “Démunis” [Destitute]. For two years, she investigated people in great precariousness in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône. Here we see one of the unfortunate trends, namely an implicit view that Roma are poor.
Other news are: In Uzès, a family is faced with expulsion. In Toulouse, the regional assembly supports the scholll inclusion od children. Also in Toulouse, on the riverbanks, a new camp is growing. In Nantes, a fire started in a camp. Finally, in the North of France, the prefect is pushing for more expulsions, something that has not been a solution for the last 20 years…
Combating anti-Gypsyism and discrimination in its various forms and supporting access to quality inclusive education are two of the priority areas of the Council of Europe’s Strategic Action Plan for Roma and Traveller Inclusion (2020-2025).
Knowledge of the history and culture of the Roma and Travelers is still marginal or even non-existent among the general public and this misreading strongly contributes to the discrimination to which these populations are confronted.
There is an urgent need to highlight the contribution of Roma and Travelers to European societies through culture, arts and history. Educational policies on minorities are urgent.
Sead Kazanxhiu’s illustrated book, Roma Tales and Legends (published in trilingual: Albanian, English, Romani and separately in French) is an important contribution to the recognition and understanding of Roma culture, for Roma and non-Roma children and for the general population.
Patrik Banga’s autobiographical book The Real Way Out was published. It tells the story of his life from his childhood in Žižkov in Prague to his journey into the journalistic world. The sometimes unbelievable stories describe in a raw way the discrimination and racism that Banga encounters already as a teenage boy.
An exceptional collections of Roma short stories depict struggles for a dignified life has been published in Prague by the Roma Literature publishing house “Kher”.
The books Samet Blues and Šude sámá krasa present the events of the last century, including the fall of communism, through the lens of Roma men and women. They capture the atmosphere in the Roma minority and the rise of racism in society. They are united by helplessness, existential uncertainty and sadness from social exclusion.
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