Peace is Hungry

Following our first housewarming event which was held this October at our new home on Max-Beer-Straße in Arabic, Persian, and Ukrainian, we welcomed November with a second housewarming – this time entirely devoted to poetry in Kurdish.

After an introduction by Levke Nissen and Theresa Rüger, Poetry Project workshop leader Anna Velhorn and PEN workshop leader Meral Şimşek held a conversation facilitated by interpreter Sozdar Jafarzadeh. The discussion focused on Meral's and Sozdar's complicated relationship with the Kurdish and Turkish languages. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey, yet Kurdish was banned in schools for a long time. These days it is sometimes taught – but only as a foreign language. Writer Meral has only recently started publishing in Kurdish, while translator Sozdar is a publisher of Kurdish-German children's books and is committed to supporting multilingualism in early childhood education.

Meral and Sozdar each recited a poem, then our workshop participants Atto Abdulsalam, Rahmetullah Berxwedan Andan, Hêro Khosrawi, Leyla Akyildiz and Bahadȋn Akhan read from their own work. Almost all of them are political refugees in Germany, and some were imprisoned several times in their home country for their political activism. Their experiences are reflected in their impressive texts, such as Bahadȋn's: "I, heir of the witch time, / swathe myself in my hunted mother tongue. / Now, amidst the heart of the strangers, / I shut the door of solitude behind me."

We would like to thank all our participants for this intense evening.