Refugee Week 20 – 26 June 2016

21 June 2016

We would love to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone who joined us yesterday at our Welcome Literary Salon with Banipal as part of Refugee Week. What a wonderful evening full of poetry, readings, performance, new projects, and film. The event was a wonderful performance piece in itself!

Palestinian writer Ahmed Masoud told us about his last book Vanished and read an extract from his upcoming book (Stay tuned for more announcements from Ahmed)! Lebanese-Spanish actress Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso presented an amazing and innovative multimedia project At Home in Gaza and in London.

Interdisciplinary artist, Juan Delgado and Dima Mekdad told us about their project Qisetna: Talking Syria. Poet and translator, Stephen Watts, read a translation from Syrian poet and friend, Golan Haji. Playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak delighted us with a short play called The Several Beheadings of Ashraf Fayadh, printed in the volume Love, Bombs and Apples, the play text of the stage play currently showing at Arcola theatre and going on a UK tour. You can check the info here.

The finale of the night came with the screening of a documentary by Syrian poet and filmmaker Hala Mohammad, Journey into Memory (2010).  The film features three Syrian authors: Faraj Bayrakhar, Yassin Haj Saleh and Ghassan Jba’I, talking together during their journey from Damascus to Tadmour jail (in Palmyra), where they were all imprisoned for 10 years. Giovanna Stopponi from Refugee Education Across Conflicts Trust (REACT) told us about the Refugee Libraries she has set up in Sudan and Lesvos and collected book donations. If you were not able to attend yesterday and would like to donate Arabic or English books, get in touch with Giovanna at info@reactweb.org

Enjoy below some lovely pictures from our Welcome Literary Salon. We look forward to seeing you all soon!