The literary tours Hakawati and Mem U Zin bring together threatened writers in exile and local Scandinavian writers. Writers share their stories and create an interaction with poetry and storytelling as a foundation.
”It has been a unique chance for the writers to meet colleagues and find a new audience for their work”, says Shoresh Ibrahim, who is the producer/coordinator of the project Shahrazad at the Culture Administration of City of Stockholm.
”The series has been really well received by the majority language speaking public, but not least by the Arabic minority, as the project focuses on and highlights the Arabic languages and literature in a positive way.”
Hakawati and Mem u Zin open the stage for writers with an Arabic and Kurdish background who due to their opinions and writings are persecuted in their own homelands and live in exile in one of the Nordic countries. During the fall and winter 2008 a total of 14 events took place in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The purpose of the project is to have the authors touring and to help to bring them together with colleagues with similar experiences and with local authors.
”Another positive thing about the project has been that the Arabic and Kurdish public has been invited to venues that they don’t usually come to. In one of the venues of the Mem u Zin – Kurdish Voices in Scandinavian there were 150 people in the public out of which over half had a Kurdish background. It is very rare to meet so varied an audience in these venues. So it is both a literary event and an integration project”, Shoresh Ibrahim emphasizes.
”The co-operation between the Nordic countries has worked so well that we have decided to continue with the Nordic literature tours and focus on different languages and literature each semester. This spring the focus is on Kurdish authors. Sweden has already had six events with more then 35 participating poets, writers and musicians and a total of over 500 people in the audience. Norway and Denmark are launching part of the tour in the end of summer 2009. Next semester we will be focusing on Latin-American literature.”
The programmes are a part of the Shahrazad – Stories for Life series, an offshoot project of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) that offer free sanctuary to threatened writers. Read more about the collaborating organizations and the project.
Both Hakawati and Mem U Zin series are supported by the Art and Culture Programme’s module for Production-based Activities and Communication.