The International Cities of Refuge Network is an association of cities and regions around the world dedicated to the value of Freedom of Expression.
Protection
ICORN Cities offer persecuted writers a safe haven where they can live and work without fear of being censored or silenced.
Promotion
ICORN supports the artistic endeavours of its guest writers and promotes new spaces for intercultural dialogues worldwide.
Poetry Reading with Anisur Rahman in Uppsala
February 2010 Saved to Events, Festivals and Opportunities
Uppsala, Sweden has just decided to join ICORN as a City of Refuge, and Anisur Rahman is their first official ICORN Guest Writer. On February 17, an 17.15, The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation is hosting a poetry reading with Rahman, who is a poet and journalist from Bangladesh.
(Photo: Fredrik Haglund)
ICORN Guest Writer takes part in planning South African Film Days in Lillehammer
February 2010 Saved to Events, Festivals and Opportunities
ICORN Guest Writer and filmmaker Prudence Uriri teaches film and is working on her next project, "After the Storm". This film has received support from Shahrazad's Neighbourhood Challenge, and will be made in cooperation with producers Elisabeth O. Sjaastad and Bob Coen.
Uppsala Guest Writer Hosts Creative Writing/Literary Workshops
January 2010 Saved to Events, Festivals and Opportunities
Anisur Rahman, poet and journalist from Bangladesh, and currently Uppsala City of Refuge's Guest Writer, will host a series of workshops starting today. Each workshop will also feature one Swedish guest author. Participants of the workshops will attain an orientation on how to develop ideas, how to judge one's own writing, how one could become a critical reader aiming to be a writer, and on making writing a career.
Visit Shahrazad!
Welcome to the Shahrazad website, a free space in Europe for writers from all over the world to tell their stories and to be heard.
Six ICORN cities are taking part in the Shahrazad project: Barcelona, Brussels, Frankfurt, Norwich, Stockholm and Stavanger. But writers from every corner of the world are invited to contribute words.
The Shahrazad project will set in motion a transnational dynamic of sharing and exchanging new stories. It will reach out specifically to individuals and groups unfamiliar with traditional literary and cultural activities. It will focus especially on children and young people who, through educational programmes, creative workshops and digital story production, will experience both the receiving and production ends of the Stories for Life chain of communication.
Ultimately, the Shahrazad project aims to provide Europe with new, more open and sustainable narratives about itself. By opening up to human and artistic impulses from ‘outside', Europe can regain and revitalise some of its capital values: freedom, democracy and solidarity.
Shahrazad is a European Union Culture 2007: multi-annual co-operation project