Writing workshop at the Swiss Institute of Literature in Biel

Between February and May 2018, Eugène Meiltz, writer and lecturer at the Swiss Institute of Literature in Biel, held a writing workshop at said Institute together with the IEC’s dissemination team. Students tackled the topic of administrative detention and drew inspiration for their texts from the information on the IEC’s website, historical photos and written sources as well as current newspaper articles or television reporting.

Their stories, poems or monologues approach the topic from different points of view: how can you describe a society that considers compulsory welfare measures right? How are social issues regarding order, work, training, poverty, family, sexuality and health linked up with this phenomenon? What are the personal destinies behind administrative detention? What does the reassessment process unleash for example in the grandchild of a person who was once an administrative detainee?

Publication of the literary texts

The writing workshop produced 22 literary contributions in French. Christoph Roeber translated them in German. The texts are printed in French in volume 2B «Les questions sur le passé sont des questions du présent – Aperçus de l’internement administratif» and in German in volume 2A «Fragen zu gestern sind Fragen von heute – Einblicke in die administrative Versorgung» of the IEC’s series of publications. They can also be downloaded as pdf-files.