
10.00 am
Conversation and literary walk with
Sarah Laurent Zurawczak, Occitan Language Prize
Moderated by: Jean Frederic Brun – in company with the musicians-artists of the Ostana Prize
Occitan Language
Biography
Sarà Laurens, born in Nimes, has been passionate about writing from a young age, and she likes to point out that since her teenage years she has received recognition for her writing through numerous prizes earned in numerous writing competitions. In the meantime, in high school, the discovery of the Occitan language and the writers who formed her: Jòrgi Peladan, Jòrgi Gròs, and certainly Robert Lafont: There she found the means she needed to energize her incisive and dishevelled pen.
The result was novellas noted by readers of genre magazines: Òc, Reclams, Mesclum, Gai Saber, Aquò d’Aquí. A collection of those novellas, which appeared in 2010 Sus lo viu (No. 188 of the la collection ATOTS d’IEO-IDECO), was crowned the same year with the Pau Froment prize. Sarà Laurens proved herself more and more to be an excellent author of short stories, a genre of which Renat Nelli, in the 1970s, lamented the lack in Occitan, arguing that the production found in the almanacs of the 19th century did not deserve that name. The short story, strained to an explosive, jubilatory dynamic, as in some of the great Anglo-Saxon authors of the 20th century.
Robert Lafont, among his abundant oeuvre, donated a series of them, and for more than one reader it is the best he has left us in the field of literature. Of course, that writing inscribes the letters d’òc in a total modernism, naturally integrating great ancestors’ legacy, who gave luster to the literary language.
In addition to that, by rooting herself in the Provençal Marseillaise with all its subtle nuances and incredible expressiveness, Sarà Laurens gives his phrase a dynamism that deserves to be emphasized. In 2021, with the Cronicas dau Cardo (coleccion Memòris d’IEO EDICIONS/ IEO CREO Provènça), she continued in a perfect way that dynamic of literary production already undertaken. Thus the jury of the Ostana Prize felt it was time to cast a fine spotlight on this worthy work and spread the knowledge of this writer to a wide international audience.
Motivation Occitan Language Award
The Occitan language continues to have a contemporary presence with all its descriptive power, in a current, ironic and entertaining way through Sarà Laurens’ writing. A young author, vocated to writing since the time of her adolescence. Who has love for the language and for the places of Mediterranean Provence well represented in her stories.
Thanks in part to great writers who have preceded her and who have been masters, among whom we particularly like to remember Robert Lafont, the author has been able to draw on a vast literary repertoire in Languedoc, which combined with her professional work as an Occitan language teacher allows her to handle the language creatively, using a rich Occitan that gives a broad and powerful perspective view of the language. A language of tradition that wants to move toward a future. That does not intend to barricade itself in its own little world but intends to open itself to the world in a universal way.
For her literary endeavors, for her commitment in schools and in society at large to the promotion and dissemination of the Occitan language, she is awarded the “Preio alla lingua occitan” in the 12th Edition of 2020
PARTNERS
The Ostana Prize celebrates the international support received
from the UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages, and from two reference institutions in the linguistic field: the ELEN network (European Language Equality Network) and the NPLD network (Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity).