A READING AGAINST WAR AND VIOLENCE
With authors who have escaped cruelty, torture, and death.

A Cooperation by The Poetry Project e. V., Schamoni Film and PEN Zentrum Deutschland

with readings by:

Rojin Namer - Shahzamir Hataki - Robina Karimi
Kakwenza Rukirabashaija - Peter Kagayi
Stella Nyanzi - Eron Kiiza

Babylon Berlin - 30.04.22 - 20 Uhr - Free Entry
Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, 10178 Berlin

Peter Kagayi is one of the leading performance poets in Uganda. His poems have been performed at the Kampala International Theatre Festival and the Africologne Theatre Festival. Kagayi is also a curator at the performance poetry initiative ‘The Poetry Shrine’, a poetry coach and patron of the Rhymers Poetry Club at Nabisunsa Girls School. He lives in Kampala.

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Eron Kiiza is a lawyer and a poet. He growls first and smiles later when it comes to defending human rights. As a partner in the law firm Kiiza & Mugisha Advocates, he is known to be able to talk himself into trouble and talk himself out of trouble, in one single breath! The combination of lawyer, human rights activist and poet makes him among the most idealistic intellectuals in Uganda. He lives in Kampala.
 
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Dr. Stella Nyanzi is a human rights advocate, poet, medical anthropologist, feminist, queer rights advocate, and scholar of sexuality, family planning, and public health. She was jailed for insulting Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni via a poem. In 2020 she was awarded the Oxfam Novib/PEN International award for freedom of expression. Since 2020 she has been living in Germany as a PEN Germany scholarship holder.
 
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Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is a Ugandan novelist. He was arrested for the first time after the publication of his bestseller "The Greedy Barbarian", a satirical story about corruption in a fictional African country. Last year he was awarded the international PEN Pinter Prize in the category „Bravest Writer“. After his last arrest and bad torture in January this year, the German PEN Center appointed him an honorary member and rescued him to Germany.

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Shahzamir Hataki was born in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan and fled to Germany as his parents’ only son at age 15. He traveled for three months, and nearly drowned on the way to Greece. Today Shahzamir is training at the Charité Berlin. He was awarded the Else Lasker-Schüler-Lyrikpreis in 2018 and the Theo Prize in 2019.

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Rojin Namer was born as the oldest of five children in Damascus, Syria. The horrors of the war caused Rojin to travel to Germany at age 12 in 2015 with her uncle. She now lives in Berlin, has just moved into her first own apartment and is completing her Abitur this year. Rojin was awarded the Theo in 2019 as well as the Lyrix 2019 and 2020.

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Robina Karimi grew up together with her two sisters at her older brother’s house in Kabul, Afghanistan. At home she was pursued by Islamists and first attempted to flee in 2016. After multiple failed attempts, Robina finally made it to Germany via plane in 2017. She now lives in Berlin with her sister and wants to study Engineering.