The Tenth Anniversary Festival
Public events on sanctuary, place, histories, and tenderness
April 20, 2026, 12:00 AM to April 25, 2026, 5:00 PM EDT
Multiple venues
About the Tenth Anniversary:
The Cheuse Center’s tenth anniversary festival will have multiple events in April. We are pulling out all the stops, flying down multiple writers from across the world! In addition to the Cheuse Center, our dear co-sponsors – Mason Exhibitions, Goethe-Institut and Solasnua—will help us host these events across DC. We can’t wait for you join us in our beautiful regional cities. It’s a star-studded week of international writers, local archivists, artists, and scholars for conversations on literature, history and place.
We are focusing on the Washington DC region and the borderlands of rivers and peoples. Virginia's George Mason is home to the Cheuse Center where Alan Cheuse taught for 30 years. He was NPR's book guy, living in Washington, and like many of us who live in the region, from somewhere else. Son of a Ukrainian engineer from Stalin's airforce, Alan grew up in New Jersey.
By meditating on our home in the region, the Cheuse Center is taking time to focus not just on international writers, and writers from America who face out into the world, but also on place.
Our flagship lecture will think back to former Washington Post publisher Agnes Meyer’s persuasive ‘rescue’ of Nobel prize winning German writer Thomas Mann from Europe. Meyer, who was of German origin, was the mother of newspaper legend Katharine Graham, who is buried in Oak Hill cemetery in Washington. Mann himself, had a Brazilian mother, and grew up in Munich.
On April 23rd, the lecture will be delivered by magical Irish storyteller, Colm , whose book on Thomas Mann was "The Magician". He will be in conversation with Thomas Mann scholar and famed German writer Malte Herwig.
On the 24th, Malte Herwig will have his US premier of his documentary on his grandfather, a German soldier, as he searches for a Jewish child from the Holocaust in Poland. Herwig will be in conversation with Polish writer Grzegorz Kwiatkowski.
On April 25th our festival will end with a visit to Georgetown’s famous Oak Hill Cemetery where, since the mid 1800s the nation’s history stirs through the hills, including the original resting place of Lincoln’s son, "Willie". Winding paths lead us through memories of the city, including of the American Civil War. We will also walk through the neighboring cemetery of Mt Zion- Female Union Band Society Cemetery, a secular burial ground for African Americans, in historic black Georgetown. Inspired by Grzegorz's visits to the cemetery and his friendship with George Saunders, this event is curated with writers and archivists working to honor the history of our nation's capital.
As we see in person the nature of power, witness, and place, we will reflect on the complexity of our common human heritage, through literature, friendship and the importance of art in public life. Come join us as we literally walk through history!
Conversations and events with Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (Visiting Scholar in Residence)
April 21–25, 2026
Conversations will be located at the School of Art, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Polish poet and human rights activist Grzegorz Kwiatkowski joins us for a week of conversations.
The 2026 Cheuse Lecture: “Stories of Sanctuary” with Colm Tóibín
April 23, 2026 | 7:00–9:00 PM
Stacy C. Sherwood Community Center, 3740 Blenheim Boulevard, Fairfax, VA 22030, Fairfax, VA
In celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Cheuse Center, join us for this year’s Cheuse Lecture with Irish writer Colm Tóibín, in conversation with German intellectual Malte Herwig. In Stories of Sanctuary, Tóibín reflects on exile, identity, and what it means to seek, and create, refuge through literature.
More Info: https://cheusecenter.gmu.edu/events/17712
Parking map: https://www.fairfaxva.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/19533/638139572124230000
Film Premiere: Malte Herwig’s “The Girl with the Golden Hair”
April 24, 2026 | 6:30–9:30 PM
Goethe-Institut, 1377 R Street NW, Washington, DC
Join us for the US premier of The Girl with the Golden Hair. This powerful documentary follows Malte Herwig’s search to uncover the story behind a haunting WWII photograph that was in his grandfather’s possession. His grandfather, a gold medalist in the Los Angeles Olympics, served the German army, occupying Poland at the start of the War in 1939. The screening will be followed by a conversation and reception. This event is in conjunction with Grzegorz Kwiatkowski’s residency. Kwiatkowski and Herwig’s works overlap in ways that will make for a stimulating conversation. RSVP.
Bringing Them Home
A Literary Reading & Guided Cemetery Tour (Georgetown)
April 25, 2026 | 2:00–5:00 PM
Where: Mt Zion - Female Union Band Society Cemetery, and Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown
An afternoon exploring place and history, featuring Polish writer and activist Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, alongside Mt Zion - Female Union Band Society Cemetery’s Director Lisa Fager, Oak Hill Cemetery’s Archivist and Collections Manager Laura Thoms, Director of GW’s Creative Writing program Lisa Page, poet Martheaus Perkins, and writer and Cheuse Director Leeya Mehta, with guided tours connecting literature, history, and place. As we visit these cemeteries we also acknowledge that many of us will never be found, never be buried, never be known perhaps; so how do we create the idea of home and last rites, how do we continue to form community across the world even when there is no closure? How do we carry history, and bring the lessons home?
Curation: Leeya Mehta and Grzegorz Kwiatkowski
RSVP: https://cheusecenter.gmu.edu/events/18088
***
Event Bookshelf:
- Colm Tóibín, “The Magician”.
- Malte Herwig’s books in English include “The Woman Who Says No: Françoise Gilot on Her Life With and Without Picasso."
- Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, “Crops"
- Lisa Page (co-editor), “We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America” See a Review in the Kenyon Review. https://kenyonreview.org/reviews/we-wear-the-mask-edited-by-brando-skyhorse-and-lisa-page-738439/
- Martheaus Lamar Perkins, “The Grace of Black Mothers”
- George Saunders, “Lincoln in the Bardo”
- Listen to Alan Cheuse’s review of Colm Tóibín's Nora Webster:
- Alan Cheuse’s reviews of George Saunders:
- Leeya Mehta, "A story of the world before the fence."
Festival brochure*
*in progress.
Curation: Leeya Mehta, Director, the Cheuse Center and the Tenth Anniversary Committee.
