On November 24, join distinguished author Lola Lafon as she will discuss her latest book, When You Listen to This Song (trans. by Lauren Elkin, Yale University Press).  

In 2021, Lola Lafon was granted permission to stay overnight—alone for ten hours—in the Annex in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family had hidden from the Nazis between 1942 and 1944. Lola Lafon’s visit to this space, where Anne Frank wrote her famous diary, evoked the confinement and constant danger suffered by the Franks, and the family’s ghostly presence as well. “The night was inhabited, lit by reflections,” the author writes. “Some urgency dwelled at the heart of the Annex, crouched there, ready to be discovered.” 

Lola Lafon introduces a new vision of Anne Frank, not as a venerated and exploited myth but as the precocious, ambitious, and beloved girl she was as well as a disciplined writer whose well-loved diary is in fact a carefully constructed literary work. Throughout, Lola Lafon reflects on what it means to lose loved ones, both  her own family in the Holocaust and her childhood friend to the Khmer Rouge. A prize-winner and best-seller in France, this book asks us to consider the stories we tell ourselves about tragedy, how we grapple with loss, and why, in the face of danger and confinement, women write. 

This event is in English and is free.  Please click here to RSVP.

The event is co-organized with Villa Albertine and is a part of the Authors on Tour and 2025 Literary Fall program. 

Lola Lafon is a French writer who grew up in Eastern Europe and studied dance and music in Paris and New York. Her books tackle several ideological themes such as capitalism, antifascism, and probe the violence and deceit of society toward women. Lola Lafon is politically engaged in several collectives, addressing feminist questions and concerns. Her prizewinning books include The Little Communist Who Never Smiled (trans. by Nick Caistor, Seven Stories Press) and Reeling: A Novel (trans. by Hildegarde Serle, Europa Editions).