The festivities never stop. As a part of the ongoing San Diego State University Centennial celebration, the English department has added to the party by hosting a weeklong Raymond Federman Festival.
The festival celebrates not only the SDSU Press’ publication of Federman’s collected works, “Federman A to X-X-X-X,” but the author himself. Federman is touted as one of postmodern fiction’s radical thinkers, as well as one of its most distinguished and influential authors and critics.
Federman, 69, has experienced much in his life. A French-born Jew, he says his life began at age 14. It was then that he remembers the Gestapo coming to his house and arresting his family. His mother pushed Federman into a closet, where he hid for hours after he heard his family taken away. While Federman was forced to survive on his own, his family was eventually sent to Auschwitz, where they died in the gas chambers. Federman now refers to this memory as “X-X-X-X,” symbolizing the impossibility of speaking of such an event.
Federman picked up the pieces of his life and went on to farm, move to America, work on an assembly line, go to high school, get drafted into the military and, at 26 (take heart, returning students), enroll in Columbia University to study creative writing.
He eventually put his various life experiences toward writing such bestselling novels as “Double or Nothing,” “Amer Eldorado,” “Take It or Leave It,” “The Voice in the Closet” and “The Twofold Vibration.”
Larry McCaffery, SDSU English professor and organizer of the event, said, “Federman’s writing has inspired, or infected, many other fiction writers. That is why Federman’s ‘A to X-X-X-X’ comes with a warning cautioning that the book is highly infectious.”
McCaffery also promises the book is not your typical run-of-the-mill story.
“‘Federman A to X-X-X-X’ is not structured the way a book normally is. It is a wild, bizarre, labyrinth of material,” he said. “There is a tension between rigid structure and a sense of chaos in the book that characterizes Raymond Federman’s material. You can read it anyway you want.”
To provide students a look at the infectious book, or an opportunity to see the author himself, several events are scheduled for next week, and everyone is welcome.
Today, Federman will be a part of a panel to discuss the question “Is it possible to be dangerous today?” at noon in the North Education building, Room 60.
He will host a multimedia open reading from 6 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, in Council Chambers, Aztec Center.
He also will speak about the impossibility, yet necessity of being a Jewish writer at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, April 23, in Montezuma Hall.
To wrap up the week, Federman will present a retrospective reading Friday, April 25, on the fourth-floor patio of the Adams Humanities building.
