After a suggestion by Julie Gilbert, a mini festival was born within La Bâtie. It all started with the desire to celebrate the 40 women writers of the Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes (Women’s Sound Library) – to celebrate them and to ask ourselves where we stood in terms of our women’s literary heritage. Our feminist heritage. For three days, the magnificent Villa Bernasconi will be transformed into a sort of women’s building, a distant tribute to the one in Los Angeles, with performances by Hiba Najem, Ana Rita Teodoro and Otomo De Manuel, as well as workshops, discussions and the entire Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes installation. It’s a joyous invitation to get together, shake up our ideas and stay alive.

Programme from Tuesday 05 to Thursday 07 September
Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes will be open to the public free of charge during opening hours.
The Fahrenheit 451 bookshop will be on hand with books by the women writers featured in Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes.

Tuesday 5 September
Opening of Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes: 18:00 – 22:00 (free admission)
18:30: Presentation of Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes and inauguration of the 40^th text on Basel writer and artist Adelheid Duvanel (1936-1996), written by Fabienne Radi.

Wednesday 06 September
Opening of Bibliothèque sonore des femmes: 12:00 - 22:00 (free admission)

Choice of shows
18:00 : Ana Rita Teodoro, Assombro / Fantôme méchant (open air, followed by Otomo de Manuel's show)
18:00 : Hiba Najem, Fatayer bi banadoura / Chaussons aux tomates (followed by Otomo de Manuel's show)

19:30 : Otomo de Manuel / Keep on, walk and walk, walk the speakers (open air, ticket independent of other shows possible)

Thursday 07 September
Opening of Bibliothèque sonore des femmes: 12:00 - 22:00 (free admission)

Spectacle
13:00 : Hiba Najem, Fatayer bi banadoura / Chaussons aux tomates

Choice of workshops (free, but registration required in the ticket office on the right of this page)
14:00-16:30: “Fantôme Écriture” workshop, by Julie Gilbert
What are the voices that have shaped our imagination? And who are the missing voices – the voices that have been covered up? And what if, today, women writers who have disappeared were to call us by telephone, thanks to a magical process that Thomas Edison might have invented? What would they tell us about their writings, their struggles and the world today?
Writing allows us to invite those who are no longer with us, like a form of dialogue invented with the afterlife. The workshop, based on the model of La Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes (The Women’s Sound Library), invites you to write about people, known or unknown, of your choice and lend them a voice.

14:00-17:00 : Workshop Fanzine Radio by Émil* Ripert
Paper, magazines, scissors, glue, a table, people and a radio: Fanzine Radio is a collective workshop that includes producing collages and ends up in a printed and bound fanzine. Participants can bring a radio programme of their choice, which will be drawn and listened to. While the participants listen to the radio waves, they start cutting and tearing magazines, arranging the fragments of paper to create new images.
The workshop ends with the creation of a first flat plan to visualise the content and the rhythm of the future fanzine.

Discussion (free, but registration required)
17:00-18:00: Let’s talk quietly.
“Why no woman, when every other man, it seems, was capable of making a song or a sonnet, has written a word of this extraordinary literature, remains for me a cruel enigma”, wrote Virginia Woolf. Toni Morrison, for her part, spoke of language dying “from neglect, obsolescence, indifference”, or being killed “by decree”. Today, we’re still amazed – or at least I am – to discover or rediscover so many women authors. So many voices.
We invite you to come and discuss this question of “having a voice” with the authors of La Bibliothèque Sonore des Femmes, based on the lives and texts of certain women writers. How do you make your voice heard as a writer today?
With Valérie Cachard, Sarah-Jane Moloney, Nadège Prugnard, Muriel Pic, Dorothée Thébert

Choice of shows
18:00 : Ana Rita Teodoro, Assombro / Fantôme méchant (open air, followed by Otomo de Manuel's show)
18:00 : Hiba Najem, Fatayer bi banadoura / Chaussons aux tomates (followed by Otomo de Manuel's show)

19:30 : Otomo de Manuel / Keep on, walk and walk, walk the speakers (open air, ticket independent of other shows possible)