Talks in English

January Wednesday 22

Clare O’Dea – The Naked Swiss

Special Schedule ! : Talk: 6:30 pm-7:45 pm ; Buffet: 7:45 pm-8:30 pm

Interview conducted by Mariana Pictet, co-founder of Coolturalia.com

In partnership with the Diplomatic Club of Geneva

The Swiss are the high achievers of Europe, coming top of the rankings in everything from quality of life to prosperity and innovation. But who are the people behind this performance? Are they, as many outsiders assume, rich and boring? Are they virtuous peace brokers or criminally neutral? These are some of the questions that Clare O’Dea sought to answer in her book, The Naked Swiss: A Nation Behind 10 Myths (Bergli Books, 2018). Originally from Dublin, Clare has been writing about Switzerland since she first arrived in the country twenty years ago, first as a freelance journalist and later as a staff writer for the international news service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. Through her work explaining Switzerland to the world, Clare has met a diverse range of Swiss characters, from the most powerful to the most marginalised. Recently, Clare has turned to fiction with the publication of her first novel, Voting Day (Fairlight, 2021). This time Swiss history was the inspiration, specifically the vote against female suffrage in 1959. Her next novel, coming in 2025, will explore the issue of assisted suicide.

April Wednesday 16

Kenneth Roth – Righting Wrongs

Drinks : 6:30 pm; Talk : 7-8:30 pm

Interview conducted by Stéphane Bussard, journalist at Le Temps

The son of a jew who fled Nazi Germany just before the war began, Kenneth Roth grew up knowing full well how inhumane governments could be. Former executive director of Human Rights Watch, he has investigated human rights abuses around the world, focusing especially on the world’s most dire situations, the pursuit of international justice, the major powers’ foreign policies, the work of the UN, and the global contest between democracy and autocracy. In three decades under his leadership, Human Rights Watch grew to a staff of more than five hundred, conducting investigations in hundred countries to uncover abuses and pressuring offending governments to stop them. Roth’s many strategies included the deployment of a concept as old as mankind, the powerful tool of “shaming”, and here he illustrates its surprising effectiveness against evildoers. Righting Wrongs, Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments (Knopf, 2025) is a story of wins, losses, and ongoing battles in the ceaseless fight to fend the moral arc from the hands of injustice and bend it toward good.

May Wednesday 7

David Nicholls – You Are Here

Drinks : 6:30 pm; Talk : 7-8:30 pm

Interview conducted by Clare O’Dea, journalist and author

Born in 1966, David Nicholls is a British novelist. After graduating from college, he started acting and eventually became a screenwriter. He notably created the BBC series Rescue Me and other adaptations of novels, plays, and memoirs. His first novel One Day received the Galaxy Book of the Year Award in 2010. It sold six million copies worldwide and was translated into forty languages. A film adaptation was released in 2011, starring Anne Hathaway and a fourteen-part Netflix adaptation premiered, garnering widespread acclaim in 2024. His fourth novel Us was granted the Specsavers National Book Awards for UK Author of the Year 2014. His novels deal with the complexities of modern love and the challenges of finding connection in an increasingly isolated world. His latest, You Are Here, released by his French publisher Belfond, touches on themes such as loneliness, second chances for middle aged and redemption as the protagonists embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth.