LETTERS FROM EXILE – CONNECTING REYKJAVIK AND LILLEHAMMER

ICORN writers Mazen Maarouf, Mehdi Mousavi, Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Amani AboShabana on Tuesday December 8th 2020 at 6 - 7:30 GMT at the House of Literature in Lillehammer / Litteraturhus Lillehammer AND online: Livestreamed via Facebook. 

Lillehammer and Reykjavik are cities who are both International Cities of Refuge (ICORN) and UNESCO Cities of Literature. This fall Lillehammer, in cooperation with Reykjavik City of Literature, invited ICORN writers Mazen Maarouf (Reykjavik) and Mehdi Mousavi (Lillehammer) to write letters to each other about their lives as exiled writers. You can read their letters at the bottom of this page.

In a conversation with the head of Lillehammer City of Literature, Olav Brostrup Müller, they will talk about their letters, their experiences and their writing. Do they have anything in common at all? How has living in a city more or less in lockdown affected their daily life? And how is it living as a writer in a City of Literature? Mazen will take part from Reykjavík.

Two other authors will also take part, Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Amani AboShabana.

The conversations will be in English.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

This fall, poet and activist Fatemeh Ekhtesari (Lillehammer) has published her first book in Norwegian translation, Vi overlever ikke (We Dot Not Survive). She will take part in a short conversation about the book, followed by a poetry reading.

A new ICORN writer in Lillehammer will also be welcomed, Amani AboShabana from Egypt. She arrived in Lillehammer earlier this fall after living years in hiding and during the pandemic, waiting to be transported safely to her new home. Together with the City of Refuge Coordinator Patricia Griffioen and in conversation with Olav Brostrup Müller, she will be talking about the journey from Egypt, the situation for freedom of speech in Egypt and her work as a writer. This will be her first public performance in Norway.

Mazen Maarouf is a Palestinian-Icelandic writer, poet, translator and journalist born in Beirut to a family of Palestinian refugees. He has published three collections of poetry, and a short story collection titled Jokes for the Gunmen. The book has been widely translated, and was nominated for the 2019 Man-Booker international award. Mazen came to Reykjavík as an ICORN writer in 2011 and is now an Icelandic citizen.

Mehdi Mousavi is an Iranian poet who came to Lillehammer as an ICORN writer in 2017. He is a poet, activist, editor and teacher who is known for his postmodern poetry and tackling social issues. He has published numerous poetry collections and also written lyrics for Iranian musicians. He, along with Fatemeh Ekhtesari, edited the journal Hamin farad bud that was banned in Iran in 2008.

Read the letters on Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature