Brigitte Kaquet, 1952-2024

It seems that we are reaching the age where we, the adventurous founders of the Magdalena Project, are saying goodbye.

Brigitte Kaquet was present from the start of Magdalena Project, a very particular voice, never in the mood of the times, never consensual. She was immensely cultured, passionate about literature and hence writing; beneath the appearance of fragility and that of a wounded bird, she had impressive determination and strength. She set up the first international Women's Voices Festival in Liège with almost nothing but an unwavering optimism and she tackled feminine politics head on: at the same time as she founded the festival, she created a network of women, sisters and mothers of the missing.She invited these women  to put into words, into actions, into thoughts this unbearable pain. She firmly believed that art was one of the effective vectors, one of the accessible languages. She believed in art against all the odds and she put art into action.

Over the years, I learned to love, respect and admire this very special, very surprising woman. We have always kept in touch. Many times I asked her to write more.  I had been impressed by the texts she had made me read and I had the feeling of meeting a writer in the making.

This year, I had the pleasure of reading the novel she had finally written, and published “Sarandra.” Such personal writing, both lyrical and sharp, both evocative and harsh, both beautiful and brutal. The story she tells us, or the stories, are infinitely sad and she manages to extract a painful beauty from them. I was immensely touched by this novel, and I especially consider it the first novel OF  a female writer. Today I mourn all those books she carried and took away with her.

She was a very beautiful woman.   

Brigitte Cirla

Read Voix de Femmes tribute to Brigitte Kaquet here (in French).

Below: Brigitte Kaquet, in front of a collage by the artist Sara Conti at the Festival Voix De Femmes in 2013.
Photo: Julien Hayard.