Poetic performance : Siegfried Strasse

Reading

Sunday 21 September
13.00u - 13.30u

Price: Gratuit - Gratis - Free Language: French - Arabic - German Location: Podium

with

Laurence Ermacova & Rabab Haidar

Presentations

A reading for two voices, in three languages. A text that begins with a description of a Berlin street, then addresses the themes of war, destruction, and violence, mixing French, German, and Arabic.

It all begins with the description of an ordinary, uneventful street in a suburb of Berlin, Siegfried Street, a pile of old clothes thrown on the sidewalk, a couple passing by and breaking up.

Gradually, the poem develops and incorporates details from the immediate environment: a hedge of lilacs in bloom, the bluish hubbub of the television, graffiti on the walls, the smell of grilled corn, and the sweet, syrupy smell of caramel from Sonnenallee.

The two poets speak in Arabic, German, English, and French. They don't always understand each other, but they respond to each other, seeking dialogue beyond what separates them, the languages of one, the languages of the other. They listen to each other, they trust each other, and they weave their languages together to express their turmoil, their anger, and the need to break the silence.

The subject is war, destruction, violence. That of weapons and silence, that of dehumanization and moral impunity, that of the rape of language by political propaganda.

Haidar and Ermacova began their collaboration in 2024 at the invitation of the Poesie Festival (Haus für Poesie Berlin). During this first meeting, there was much talk of collision and love, of the genocide taking place in Gaza and the silence imposed here.

Our speakers

Laurence Ermacova

Laurence Ermacova lives in Berlin. Her texts arise from the intersection of languages and a slightly distanced observation of everyday life. They give voice to pale, discreet voices that have rarely spoken or have not dared to speak. Once spoken, this voice fills the pages. Her writing resembles a form of smuggling art. She transfers words from one language to another, weaves their sounds together, and lets the words float above meaning. She blurs the boundaries. In 2021, she received the Research Grant for Non-German Literature from the Berlin Senate. She performs her texts in French and German, works with school audiences, and carries out poetic actions in public spaces with the collective U8, which she founded in December 2021 with the poet Neïtah Janzing.

Rabab Haidar

Rabab Haidar is a Syrian novelist, journalist and translator from Latakia living in Berlin. She majored in English literature at the University of Damascus. After graduation she lived in the Gulf, Africa and Europe. She came back to Syria before the revolution and started working as a writer and journalist. Her first novel The Land of Pomegranates, tracing the lives of three women from the Alawite minority in Syria, was published 2012, and she has completed two more novels which she has put on hold to reassess in her new situation. She was awarded a Heinrich Böll scholarship in 2018, and has lived in Germany since. She participates in the project Weiter Schreiben (Writing On) which pairs immigrant and German authors to work together and translate each other’s writing. She has been writing for Die Zeit, and is on the editorial team of Abwab, the Arabic newspaper in Germany.