ICORN Writers: A - B - C - D - E

Click on the alphabetical list to read the writers' biographies.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Mohamad Alaaedin Abdul Moula

Guest Writer, Mexico City City of Refuge 2011 - present

Mohamad Alaaedin Abdul Moula is an award winning writer and poet from Syria. Since his first poetry collection, Elegies for the Family of Hearts (1990), he has published more than a dozen books. In addition to poetry and prose, he has written critical works. Mr. Abdul Moula is a member of the Arabic Writers’ Union in Syria, and details of his work can be found (in Arabic) on their website. 

Since 1980 Mr. Abdula Moula has been under threat, harassed, and on several occasions forbidden to travel outside the country. Considerable pressure has been put on him to write in favour of the Syrian president, and in 1996 he lost his job for refusing to cooperate.

  Mohammed Hassan Abdullah

Guest writer, Tromsø City of Refuge 2007 - 2009

As a writer, translator and researcher, Mohammed Hassan Abdullah from Iraq, focused on French Literature and poetry. He has translated children's books, French novels and poetry and worked as a French teacher in Iraqi schools. In his homeland he also wrote articles defending democracy. This, together with his engagement to French literature, led to severe persecution of himself and his family. After harassment and death threats, Mohammed Hassan Abdullah came to Tromsø with his family in 2007.

Carlos A. Aguilera

Current Guest Writer, Hannover City of Refuge

Guest Writer, Frankfurt City of Refuge 2007 - ?

The Cuban poet, writer and cultural critic, Carlos A. Aguilera came to Frankfurt City of Refuge in August 2007 and after his stay there ended moved on to Hannover City of Refuge. He is currently working on a new book.

Pegah Ahmadi

Guest Writer, Frankfurt City of Refuge 2009 - present 

Pegāh Ahmadi is an Iranian poet, scholar, literary critic and translator of poetry. Ahmadi made her début as a poet at age seventeen by the publication of a poem in the literary magazine Takāpu. She has studied Persian literature at the University of Tehran, and regularly contributed to literary magazines on subject matters related to criticism of verse, theoretical issues pertaining to poetry and translation of poems. She is a member of Iranian Writers Association. In 2007 she was awarded the Celebrity of Poetry Award of the Iranian Journalists' Institute. Ahmadi has published several books of poetry, anthologies, literary reviews and translation of American poetry (like Sylvia Plath). Before coming to Germany, she worked as editor of the literary review Paperik and taught "Poetry in cinema" at the Film School Tehran.

Jahangir Alam Akash

Guest writer, Tromsø City of Refuge 2011 - present

Jahangir Alam Akash is a journalist from Bangladesh, who has worked for newspapers, radio- and tv channels in his home country. He has reported on human rights issues sush as Islamic militancy and extra-judicial killings and women's rights. Akash has been a front figure in Bengali human rights organizations like Justice Foundation, Bangladesh Institute for Human Rights and Taskforce Against Torture. He has published several books and has received awards for his human rights work as well as for his journalistic literature. Akash was harassed, arrested unlawfully and tortured in prison. This forced him to leave Bangladesh, by the help of Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. He is the editor of the website Euro Bangla.

Svetlana Alexievich

Former Guest Writer, Gotheburg City of Refuge 

Born in the Ukraine, Svetlana is an investigative journalist and writer. She is an award-winning author whose works have been the basis for documentary films focusing on witnessing and national crisis. Her most recent book is Voices from Chernobyl .

Salah Salim Ali

Guest writer, Kristiansand City of Refuge 2006 -2008

Salah Salim Ali is a writer and researcher in translation and linguistics, from Iraq. He ha written extensively about Iraqi Classical Poetry. Ali worked at the University of Mosul and as an interpreter. During Saddam Hussein's regime he was imprisoned for one year and faced many difficulties after his release. In Norway he has been active writing articles and participating in international conferences within his field.

Soudabeh Alishahi

Guest Writer, Oslo City of Refuge 2001 - ?

Soudabeh Alishahi grew up in Iran and worked as a high school teacher for many years. Her short stories focused on controversial subjects such as women's rights and were consequently censored in Iran.  

Photo: Lars Aarønæs

Manal Al-Sheikh

Guest Writer, Stavanger City of Refuge 2009 - 2011 

Poet from Iraq. Al-Sheikh has been a very active participant in the Arab Union of Writers since 1993, and has published collections of her own poetry as well as editing an anthology of modern Iraqi poetry.  Manal Al-Sheikh is from Nineveh in northern Iraq, and has a degree in English translation from the College of Arts at Mosul University. Her first book, Inhirafut-tawabeet (The Deviation of Coffins), was published by the Iraqi Union of Writers in Nineveh in 1996. In 2007, she edited and published Umaraur-ruaa (Princes of Imaginative Visions), an anthology of modern Iraqi poetry, and published Assfar Alo’zlah (Books of Seclusion) in Egypt in 2008 and in 2009 Belnokta elhamraa tahta eynhi elyousrah (With a red dot under his left eye). You can listen to an interview with Al-Sheikh here, and hear her read her poem Pennylessness here. You can also read an interview in Norwegian here.

Safaa Alwan

Guest Writer, Skien City of Refuge 2009 - present 

Safaa Alwan worked as an editor, journalist and writer in his homeland of Iraq, which he had to flee in 2009. 

Asieh Amini

Current Guest Writer, Trondheim City of Refuge 2010 - present

Amini is a poet, journalist, and women's rights activist, and one of Iran's most effective campaigners against the death penalty, particularly stoning and juvenile executions. She was awarded Human Rights Watch's Hellmann/Hammett award in 2009.

Dejan Anastasijevic

Guest Writer, Bussels City of Refuge 2008 - 2010 

Serbian Dejan Anastasijevic is an investigative journalist and writer, and has freelanced for Time Magazine and The Guardian among others. He came to Brussels as their first Guest Writer.

In 1998, his articles on the violence against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo brought him into discredit with the Milosevic regime. In April 1999, during the NATO bombardments and the subsequent suppression of the free press, he fled to Vienna. He returned to Belgrade to witness the downfall of Milosevic and was the first Serbian journalist to testify against Milosevic at the Tribunal in The Hague. His present journalism is mainly about organised crime and insecurity in Serbia.

Dejan Anastasijevic has also written Out of War (London, 2000), a highly-praised book on the Serbian opposition.

Parvin Ardalan

Guest Writer, Malmö City of Refuge 2010 - present

Ardalan is an Iranian journalist, women's rights activist, a writer, and the editor of the feminist websites Iranian Feminists Tribune, Zanestan, and Change for equality. She co-founded the Women's Cultural Center, and the One Million Signatures Campaign, a grass roots movement aimed at repealing discriminatory laws against women. Ardalan won the Olof Palme Prize In 2007 and the Hellman/Hammett award in 2010. She is an honorary member of Swedish PEN. 

Salah At-Tarjuman

. . . is a pseudonym for a current ICORN Guest Writer whose identity cannot be revealed at this time. We hope that we will be able to present this person's real name and writing credentials in the near future. Please check back.

Faraj Bayrakdar

Former Guest Writer, Stockholm City of Refuge

Faraj Bayrakdar of Syria is a journalist and award-winning poet. In 1987 he was arrested on suspicion of belonging to the Party for Communist Action. He was held incommunicado for nearly seven years and was tortured. In 1993 the supreme court sentenced him to fifteen years prison. Fourteen months shy of completing the fifteen year sentence, Faraj Baryakdar was granted Amnesty. You can read the statement he made for the press upon his release (courtesy of English PEN) here.

Photo:

Sihem Bensedrine

Guest Writer, Barcelona City of Refuge 2010

Tunisian journalist and writer prevented from working in her own country because of her involvement in human rights. She faced long term persecution and reprisals against her and her family. A graduate of philosophy of the University of Toulouse (France), Sihem Bensedrine has been engaged in the fight for the human rights in Tunisia since 1980. As a journalist, she made her debut in the independent press which prospered in the 80s. This was the beginning of a fight for press freedom. This fighting also extended to the feminist sphere where she was at the origin of the birth of a women's club, Club Tahar Haddad, and of Nissa, a feminist magazine. 
Bensedrine is now editor in chief of the online magazine Ka¬lima and Radio Kalima (web and satellite radio). Kalima was denied registration after five attempts to register.  In the beginning of 2011 after the Tunisian revolution, Bensedrine was able to return home. In August 2011 she received the Human Rights Watch Award  "Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism".

Seedy Bojang

Guest writer, Frederiksberg City of Refuge 2010 - present

Seedy Bojang is a published author of both fiction and non-fiction books, as well as journalist and editor from the Gambia. His novel from 2009, Tip of the Iceberg, exposes corruption and criminality among civil servants and the affluent in the Gambia. Other works discus social issues in the Gambia, such as  Shadows from my past (2010), Bumpy journey (2008) and The changing world (2006). As a journalist Bojang is active in reporting on restraints of freedom of expression, as well as threats and harassment of journalists. Due to hos work, there are great difficulties in finding employment in hte Gambia for Seedy Bojang. In August 2011 Bojang's latest book was released, Our tears and sorrows, a portrayal of the blows and media freedom and democracy on the African continent.

Guest Writer pf Mexico City Casa Refugio, City of Refuge.

Boubacar Boris Diop was born in Dakar, Senegal, where he attended a French school. Even before he finished high school, he wrote an unpublished novel describing he experience of racism. He got a degree in Literature and Philosophy and began teaching elementary school. An anti-colonialist, he was politically active. In 1981 he published his first novel, which won the Prix du Bureau Sénégalais du Droit d'Auteur. His second novel also won an award. His third novel was based on interviews with the survivors of the 1998 Tutsi genocide.

Gilles Dossou-Gouin

Guest Writer, Molde City of Refuge 2007 - 2009

Gilles Dossou-Gouin was born in Benin and identifies himself as belonging to the ethnic group Fon. He studied the humanities, theology and philosophy as a Séminariste among the Catholic monks. He also attended the International School of Detectives and Experts.

His first novel, published in 1996 was entitled God's Symbolism and the Imaginary . The book was a critical, socio-political satire and received nation-wide attention. In 1997 the controversy surrounding it forced Gilles Dossou-Gouin to flee to Senegal, where he lived in exile. His second novel The Black Cry of the Negro was published in 2003 with the help of UNESCO. Gilles Dossou-Gouin is an activist and writes articles to promote Human Rights, and the Rights of Women and Children.

Islam Elsanov

Guest Writer, Stavanger City of Refuge 2002 - 2004 

Islam Elsanov is a filmmaker and writer from Chechnya. He has a MA in Literature from the Gorkij Writers Institute. For eight years Islam Elsanov edited the literary journal Grozni and he also worked as a book editor for the Grozni publishing house. He is currently working on a feature-length historical documentary.

HasanYousefi Eshkevari                     

                                    
Guest writer, Chiusi City of Refuge 2008 - 2010 

Yousefi Eshkevari is a journalist and researcher in Islamic theology and the history of Islam, critical to the theocratic government of Iran. Previously he has worked as the director of the Ali Sheriati Research Centre and has been the editor of the newspaper Iran-e Farda, which was banned in 2000. In 2000 Yousefi Eshkevari was arrested and imprisoned for “war against Islam” and “apostasy”. He was released in 2005.