Writing On – Europe

Our project Writing On – Europe carries the exchanges of the literature site Writing On to Europe.

For Writing On – Europe, authors living in exile in France, Sweden, Italy and Germany exchange literary letters. Here, we publish the correspon­dences of these authors, about their lives and experiences in European exile.

„Europe is too valuable to be left to the Europeans.“ Inspired by these words by the Brazilian author Rafael Cardoso, we invited four tandems of authors to write letters, emails, direct messages or postcards to each other about their experiences.

In the spirit of a new „littérature engagée“, Europe Writing – On investigates how authors who have had to leave their home countries and have found refuge in other European countries can use their stories to broaden the public discourse in Germany. How do they personally perceive the country – also against the background of their refugee experience – in times of inflation, war, pandemic and right-wing populism? And how do they express this in their artistic work?

The idea of the literature site Weiter Schreiben (Writing On) has followed a transnational approach from the very beginning. While initially working together with writers living in exile in Germany, Europe Writing – On now carries the literary exchange further and opens itself up to Europe.

All letters are translated from the original language (Arabic/Persian) into German. The authors will present their literary correspondence at two readings in November and December 2022 at the Oyoun Cultural Centre in Berlin. More information and the exact dates will follow shortly.

The pairs of correspondents are:

• Rasha Alqasim (Iraq/Sweden) & Abdalrahman Alqalaq (Syria/Germany)
• Mostafa Hazara (Afghanistan/France) & Batool Haidari (Afghanistan/Italy)
• Widad Nabi (Syria/Germany) & Omar Kaddour (Syria/France)
• Zia Ghasemi (Afghanistan/Sweden) & Ali Abdollahi (Iran/Germany)

Writing On – Europe is a project of WIR MACHEN DAS funded by the Allianz Foundation.