Turning Tables

A literary intervention by Weiter Schreiben

In search of connections and points of contact with Hanna Bekker vom Rath’s fearless commitment, four exiled authors from the Weiter Schreiben project reflect on the possibilities of poetic-artistic resistance against patriarchal violence and oppression today. The reading performances by Dima Albitar Kalaji, Sveta Ben, Rasha Habbal and Mazda Mehrgan will be accompanied by the musicians Bahila Hijazi and Louay Kanawati as well as the visual artist Marwa Younes Almokbel. Author Annika Reich and Weiter Schreiben project manager Lama Al Haddad will present the texts, which will be read in their original Arabic, Belarusian and Persian, in German translation.

Dima Albitar Kalaji is an author, journalist and curator from Damascus, Syria, who has lived in Berlin since 2013. She publishes texts in various media, including ZEIT Online and in publications by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Since 2017, she has worked for WIR MACHEN DAS as curator (Weiter Schreiben) and artistic director (Mapping Berlin / 
Damascus, Smell of Dictatorship, Living Archive, Weiter Schreiben - Interventions).

Marwa Younes Almokbel (born 1991 in Damascus, Syria) studied art at the University of Damascus, specialising in printmaking. She has lived in Berlin since 2016, where she works as a graphic designer, painter and performance artist.

Sveta Ben, born in 1975, is an author, musician (singer in the bands Serebrianaja Svad’ba/Silberne Hochzeit and Mikrokabaret), actress and director of, among other things, paper theatre plays. 
paper theatre plays, among other things, to the formative figures of the artistic avant-garde in Belarus. 
Together with musician Galya Chikiss, she recently released the album ‘Priyom!’ and is touring Europe with it. 

Mazda Mehrgan, born in Kabul, began writing at the same time as studying medical technology and working at the registration office. She has been invited to two Afghan literature festivals 
and in 2023 was honoured at the London Jaleh Esfahani Poetry Festival for young poets from the Persian-speaking 
from the Persian-speaking world. After the Taliban took power, she had to 
2023 and now lives in Bad Driburg.

Rasha Habbal, born in 1982 in Hama, Syria, is a Syrian writer who has mainly made a name for herself as a poet. In 2018, she received the ‘Torschreiber am Pariser Platz’ scholarship from the Brandenburg Gate Foundation and the Allianz Foundation. Her first volume of poetry was published in 2021 
in German, ‘Die letzte Frau’, was published by Verlagshaus Berlin. She lives in Trier.

Bahila Hijazi and Louay Kanawati are Syrian musicians living in Berlin. They are part of the band The Last Postman, which was honoured with a Musicboard Award in 2015. Bahila, a multi-instrumentalist and composer, began her career in Damascus and has already appeared in several documentary films. Louay, a guitarist, is also part of various music projects such as Jazeera 10 and together they have performed in major European concert halls such as Funkhaus Berlin and Paradiso Amsterdam.