Photo © Rottkay
Kahel Kaschmiri (*2000) grew up in a family of eight in the Afghan province of Ghazni. A militia commander had taken against him, and Kahel, then fourteen years old, fled through Iran in the car trunk of a people-smuggler. After 29 days fleeing by car and on foot, he finally reached Berlin and had to make a life without his family. He does not like to be reminded of his first period in the city and his temporary accommodation in a hotel. Kahel does not need to do without Afghan food, as he is now able to cook for himself everything that his mother made for him when he was a child. His texts are devoted to observing the contrasts between life in Ghazni and in Berlin. Today he is a pupil in year ten, and after completing school in summer will begin training in the hotel business.
In 2018 Kahel Kashmiri was awarded the Else Lasker-Schüler Poetry Prize.