Naim Kattan's lecture cancelled

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we regret that Naim Kattan must cancel his lecture which is due to place at the Alliance Francaise tonight, Thursday 28 October.
Sorry for any inconveniences this may cause.

The fascinating world of the Ocean waves by Pr. Frederic Dias

Wednesday 3 November - 6.30 pm

Water waves can have destructive power but they can also be a source of renewable energy, especially in Ireland. Expert on water waves for over 20 years, Prof. Frederic Dias from University College Dublin (School of Mathematical Sciences) will present his work The fascinating world of waves at the Alliance Francaise.

The presentation is in French with films and slides in English. It will be followed by a session of questions and answers in English and French.

Admission free
Limited number of seats available: RSVP info@alliance-francaise.ie - 01 676 17 32.

Thursday 28 October at 6.30pm
Lecture : Pourquoi j’ai choisi le français. par Naim Kattan

Naim Kattan, writer, literary critic (born at Baghdad, Iraq in 1928). Kattan studied law at the University of Baghdad before studying literature at the Sorbonne. His fictionalized memories of these years appeared as Adieu, Babylone (1975) and Les Fruits arrachés (1977). He immigrated to Canada in 1954 and in 1984 became head of the writing and publishing division of the Canada Council. Kattan has contributed to magazines and newspapers in the Near East, Europe and North America, and has written several books, distinguishing himself in the genres of essay, novel, short story and theatre.
In Le Réel et le théâtral (1970), a collection of essays that won the Prix France-Canada (1971), Kattan pondered the elements that over the ages have differentiated and distinguished cultures and civilizations, the relationship of oriental and occidental man with nature, other men and the beyond. He continued this reflection in La Mémoire et la promesse (1978), Le Désir et le pouvoir (1983) and Le Repos et l'oubli (1987).
In collaboration with the Délégation générale du Québec à Londres.

Presentation in French
Q & A in French and English
Admission free. RSVP: info@alliance-francaise.ie

MEET THE WRITER AZOUZ BEGAG

Wednesday 13 October 6.30pm

Azouz Begag, born in Lyon, France, is a French writer, politician and researcher in economics and sociology at the CNRS. Begag's best known literary work (he has published more than 20 books, among them many novels often inspired by his childhood) is the autobiographical novel Le Gone du Chaâba, published in 1986. In his novel, he describes the first ten years in the life of a child of Algerian immigrants who arrived in France in 1949: an Arab father, a mother from Kabylia, seven siblings, and a wooden shack for a house on the banks of the Rhône, next to other shantytowns.

Azouz Begag has been the delegate minister for equal opportunities of France between 2005 and 2007. Begag's academic career, culminating in his place as a researcher at the CNRS, as well as his political career to date, have also centred around the problems of unequal opportunity for those brought up in industrial suburbs and ghettos, " les Beurs" (young French of Maghreb descent).


Presentation in French moderated by Michael Cronin, Director of the Centre for Translation and Textual studies (DCU).
Q & A in French and English
Admission free. RSVP: info@alliance-francaise.ie

Legal french evening

Tuesday 5 October at 6.30pm

Un droit europeen des contrats : un reve ou un cauchemar?
Presentation by Paul Keane, Managing Partner of Reddy Charlton McKnight and a graduate of the Diploma in Legal French

The European Contract Law proposal presents significant political, legal and linguistic challenges. Is it worth the effort?”

This event will signal the start of the academic year for the Diploma in Legal French.
Presentation in French - Q & A in French and English- Admission free

Opening of the exhibition " A natural history" by Martin Healy (30 September-27 November)

Wednesday 29 September at 6.30pm

Martin Healy’s practice explores the connection between belief, perception and recorded imagery or sound, through the framework of popular cultural mythologies and phenomena.

For the show in the Alliance Francaise Healy will present a series of works that refer to the role photography plays in the classification of the natural world.

Martin Healy graduated from Crawford College of Art in 2000. Martin Healy came to public notice when he was included in the RHA’s Futures exhibition in 2004. Since then he has had a residency at IMMA and solo shows at the RHA and Rubicon galleries. Martin Healy is represented by the Rubicon gallery.

Admission free.

Dublin Culture Night - A reading to music

Friday 24 September from 7.30pm

On the occasion of Culture Night, the Alliance Française is offering a reading to music of Si la musique doit mourir by Tahar Bekri. On this occasion, Pol Huellou, flutes, will be backed by Sean Howley, bouzouki, Gerry O’Connor, fiddle and Gilles Le Bigot, guitar.

A poet born in 1951 in Gabès, Tunisia, Tahar Bekri has been living in Paris since 1976. He writes in French and in Arabic. He has published about twenty works. His poetry, hailed by critics, is translated into various languages. His work, marked by exile and wandering, evokes crossings in time and space continually reinvented. An inner speech, it is rooted in memory, seeking new horizons, at the interface of tradition and modernity. Above all it wishes to be a fraternal song, a land without frontiers. The reading of Si la musique doit mourir of Tahar Bekri could only get Pol Huellou to compose the music to accompany and to illustrate his poem in the framework of a creative project at La Passerelle, in Saint Brieuc. Since their initial encounter, a deep friendship has developed between the poet and the musician and their act was selected by the annual event of Le Printemps des Poètes. The poem has been translated into many languages: English, Russian, German, Greek, Portuguese, but also into Irish by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

French second-hand books for sale from 6.00 pm to 10.00 pm.

Readings at 7.30 pm, 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm
Admission free

Meet the artist - Talk with Pascal Bircher

Thursday 16 September 6.30pm

Pascal Bircher’s interdisciplinary practice combines elements of personal and collective mythology, samples of reality and fiction. With strong references to history and science (particularly deep history and astrophysics), literature, genre movies and popular culture, he probes notions of origin and the mechanisms through which identity and narrative are constructed, evolve or mutate, exploring the possibilities of representing the unfathomable and the phenomena of appearance or disappearance of form and meaning.

Pascal Bircher lives and works in Paris. He is currently doing a residency at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin Q&A (French-English)

Admission free - RSVP: info@alliance-francaise.ie
Venue:
Alliance Francaise de Dublin
1, Kildare street
Dublin 2

French Week (13th to 18th july0

Hoist the French sail with the Alliance Française Dublin!
13-18 July

In partnership with the Belem Foundation and to celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Alliance Française Dublin, the third biggest Alliance in Europe, is organizing a crossing between France and Ireland on the Belem, one of the oldest tall ships still sailing the seas. A French merchant ship in her first years, later on the property of the Guinness family this vessel is France's only remaining three-masted barque.
Setting sail from Roscoff, Britanny, on the 9th of July with about 48 trainees, the Belem will be welcomed into Dublin Harbour (right beside the Samuel Beckett bridge), four days later by the French Ambassador on the 13th of July, just in time for the Bastille Day celebrations! The Belem will be moored for a few days beside a huge festive market, organised by Le Marché de France European Market, on the quayside, giving the people of Dublin a chance to come on board and to participate in the celebrations.



To all sailors!
Raise the anchor and please give the Belem:
A real Irish welcome to Dublin Bay: Tuesday July 13 around 2 to 3pm
And a real Irish farewell back to the high seas: Saturday July 17 around 9am

Bal musette

Come and enjoy the traditional celebration of Bastille Day!
Dance the night away at the “Guinguette”, an open air dance hall.

French food and wine served.

Take a stroll on the quays to the French tall ship Belem in an old-time Paris ambiance to the sound of French chanson and Cajun music.

Duo Sean & Tómas
Caroline Moreau
Cedric Watson and Bijou créole

Admission free