SAVVY Contemporary: FREEMAN'S #2 – Family

Readings and Conversations | In Collaboration with The Reader Berlin

“The world has certainly arrived in the pages of Freeman’s.” – New York Observer

SAVVY Contemporary and The Reader Berlin cordially invite you to the launch of Freeman's #2 on Family, the second issue in the journal reviewers are calling “bold” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and “refreshing” (Chicago Literati). In this second edition of Freeman’s, the new biannual of unpublished writing, former Granta editor and National Book Critics Circle President John Freeman brings together the best new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry on the ties that bind.

On the night, John Freeman will be joined by Orange New Writing Prize award-winner Joanna Kavenna, Berlin-based writer, artist and creative director Michael Salu and Garnette Cadogan, writer, visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia and editor-at-large of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. Featuring readings and the authors in conversation, the event will see the panel consider the meaning of family and the extent to which we can choose to what and whom we belong.

Following a debut issue on the theme of “Arrival,” Freeman‘s circles a new topic whose definition is constantly challenged by the best of our writers: family. In an essay called "Crossroads," Aminatta Forna muses on the legacy of slavery as she settles her family in Washington, DC, where she is constantly accused of cutting in line whenever she stands next to her white husband. Families are hardly stable entities, so many writers discover. Award-winning novelist Claire Vaye Watkins delivers a stunning portrait of a woman in the throes of postpartum depression. Booker Prize winner Marlon James takes the focus off absent fathers to write about his mother, who calls to sing him happy birthday every year. Even in the darkest moments, humor abounds. In Claire Messud’s home there are two four-legged tyrants; Sandra Cisneros writes about her extended family of past lovers; and Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his uncle's desperate attempt to remain a communist despite decades in the Soviet gulag. With outstanding, never-before-published pieces of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from literary heavyweights and up-and-coming writers alike, Freeman's: Family collects the most amusing, heartbreaking, and probing stories about family life emerging today.

Tickets: regular: 8 € | reduced: 5 €
combi (entrance plus magazine): 15 €

The event will be held in English.

“Freeman's #2", John Freeman’s „Tales of Two Cities“ and Joanna Ravenna’s “A Field Guide to Reality" will be available for purchase during the event.