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Nisrine Mbarki

Nisrine Mbarki - foto Willemieke Kars
Nisrine Mbarki - foto Willemieke Kars

(The Netherlands, 1977) is a writer, poet, columnist and literary translator. She writes short stories, theatre scripts and poetry, and translates poetry from Arabic into Dutch. Her poems and columns regularly appear in Dutch literary magazines. She has appeared at festivals such as Poetry International, Globale in Bremen, Writers Unlimited, Read My World, the Felix Poetry Festival in Antwerp, and the Nacht van de Poëzie (Night of Poetry). She is co-founder and artistic director of the theatre company Landgenoten, for which she wrote Club Paradis (2016), which was staged in the Netherlands and Germany. Her debut poetry collection oeverloos (Endless) was published in 2022.

(WU2024)

Archive available for: Nisrine Mbarki

  • Writers Unlimited 2024

    Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival

    With: Angelina Enny, Benzokarim, Dean Bowen, Nisrine Mbarki, Ronelda S. Kamfer, Sjaan Flikweert, XILLAN

    In Mensen Zeggen Dingen x Writers Unlimited Festival, two international authors -- Ronelda Kamfer (South Africa) and Angelina Enny (Indonesia) let their voices be heard alongside those of Dutch poets and spoken-word artists Dean Bowen, Sjaan Flikweert and Nisrine Mbarki. Alternative R&B-artist XILLAN joined with a musical performance. Host was Benzokarim!

    Things are nothing if they are not given words. That is exactly what Mensen Zeggen Dingen (People Say Things) does. Speaking them out, discussing them, putting exclamation marks or question marks behind them and setting the order. The platform for poetry and performance passes by with club shows in PAARD (The Hague), Theater Bellevue (Amsterdam), Tivoli Vredenburg (Utrecht), Doornroosje (Nijmegen) and festivals such as Lowlands and Down The Rabbit Hole.

    Mensen Zeggen Dingen and Writers Unlimited Festival brought a special International Literature Festival The Hague edition to PAARD with poetry, poetry slam, prose, music and punchlines.

    Festival tip: also come to the grand festival events Friday Night Unlimited (19 January) and Saturday Night Unlimited (20 January)! Both nights you choose your own route along some 20 programmes on five stages in Theater aan het Spui and Filmhuis Den Haag.

    From 18 to 21 January 2024, the festival was to be found in theatres, libraries and schools throughout The Hague: from Theater aan het Spui, Filmhuis Den Haag, Koninklijke Schouwburg and Paard to Theater Dakota, the Nieuw Waldeck, Schilderswijk and Ypenburg libraries and Haagse Hogeschool. With over ninety writers, poets and spoken-word artists and musicians from the Netherlands and abroad. With readings, prose, poetry, storytelling, spoken word, author interviews, topical talks, films and music.

  • Etel, Joan en bell

    Etel, Joan en bell - A tribute to three literary luminaries

    With: Niña Weijers, Nisrine Mbarki, Rasha Hilwi, Sabrine Ingabire

    What is the similarity between Etel, Joan and bell? Literary luminaries Etel Adnan, Joan Didion and bell hooks are all (partly) American, all three have left a great mark on Western thought, and all three passed away last year. Their work is still alive and well, and inspires an ever-growing group of readers. That is why we are paying tribute to these authors on Wednesday, May 18. We have invited three contemporary authors, self-proclaimed enthusiasts who also dare to be critical, and who will share with us their personal relationship with with the work and ideas of Etel, Joan and bell respectively. Who were these luminaries? And why is their work and legacy still so relevant today?

    We will hear...

    Rasha Hilwi on Etel Adnan, a writer you should get to know if you didn't already. This Syrian-American poet, essayist and artist created work in three languages and at least as many genres. Oil paintings, films, tapestries and poems - Adnan's work has been exhibited all over the world. From 20 May, the Van Gogh Museum will dedicate a major exhibition to her.

    Sabrine Ingabire on bell hooks, the iconic American writer, professor, feminist and activist. hooks wrote more than 30 books on issues such as race, gender, capitalism and her answer to almost every problem in the world: love. 'Her philosophy on love was about more than romantic love. It is one in which people recognize each other's humanity and approach each other as equals. A love of justice,' according to journalist and writer Ingabire in her eulogy about bell hooks in NRC.

    Niña Weijers on Joan Didion, the writer and journalist who gained great fame with the many incisive essays and books she wrote about American culture. Chaos, cultural decay and fear play a leading role in many of her books, of which The Year of Magical Thinking has become the best known. 'It is almost impossible not to see how she embodies her work: the cool seriousness, the detachment of her gaze, the glamour and at the same time the ascetic, the undeniable American quality of her appearance', according to Weijers in her essay in De Groene Amsterdammer.

    Moderator Nisrine Mbarki, translator of Etel Adnan and bell hooks, will lead the conversation.

    Etel, Joan and bell - a tribute to three literary luminaries
    Date: Wednesday, May 18, 2022
    Starts: 20:30, hall opens at 20:00
    Tickets: €11 (regular), €8 (library card, CJP and Ooievaarspas), free admission for students, schoolchildren and We Are Public-members.
    Location: Studio B, Central Library The Hague
    English and Dutch program.

    Programme compiled by Fleur Jeras (Writers Unlimited) Book sales by De Vries Van Stockum Boeken.

  • Should I translate?

    Should I translate?

    With: Daan Doesborgh, Mariolein Sabarte Belacortu, Michele Hutchison, Nisrine Mbarki

    "As a translator you feel an affinity with the writer. It is a special bond, because you step into their shoes."
    Michele Hutchison in Het Parool


    Writers Unlimited presented an evening in which translators discuss issues surrounding their field. Until the fuss at the end of last year around the translation of The Hill We Climb by the American spoken word artist Amanda Gorman, the translator himself was rarely in the spotlight and translation discussions were mainly held among themselves.

    What do translators think is important when they first read a text that they may be translating? Do they mainly look at their knowledge and skills, their affinity with the subject, or are identity questions the most important? Is it also a matter of privilege? What considerations does a translator make when taking on a job? Is that different from before? And what role do publishers play in this?

    "If you become a translator, you are stuck. To the writer and to his language, to yourself and to your own language. But that's exactly what I want most and what I like the most. Freely swaying on the waves of one language that will always flow into the waves of the other language. And emerge from those tumultuous waters with a book under each arm."
    Mariolein Sabarte Belacortu in Bzzlletin

    During the program Should I translate? Daan Doesborgh, poet, translator and host of The Poetrypodcast, talked to three fellow translators about the issues that concern them when translating texts. With:
    Mariolein Sabarte Belacortu - Spanish translator from the very beginning. Since 1970 working as a translator in the Netherlands of the work of, among others, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Jorge Luis Borges.
    Michele Hutchison - permanent translator of P.C. Hoof Prize winner Alfred Schaffer. Won the International Booker Prize in 2020 for her English translation of The evening is discomfort by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. She has translated work by Ilja Leonard Pfeijfer, Esther Gerritsen and Tom Lanoye into English.
    Nisrine Mbarki - is a writer, poet, columnist and literary translator. She writes short stories, theatre texts and poetry, and translates poetry from Arabic into Dutch. Her debut poetry collection Oeverloos (Endless) will be published January 2022.


    Dutch program.

    Event curated by Fleur Jeras (Writers Unlimited)
    Books for sale courtesy of De Vries Van Stockum Books

    Please note! It is not necessary to keep a distance of 1.5 meters in the hall.It is mandatory to show a corona admission ticket at the entrance.

    In the event of cancellation due to corona complaints, we return the purchase amount.

  • Slow Winternachten festival februari & maart 2021

    Tout-monde - #BackToEarth

    With: Amahl Raphael Khouri, Annemarie Estor, Chris Keulemans, Nisrine Mbarki, Shishani, Sulaiman Addonia, Vamba Sherif

    The image that we have of our world is purely human: a human-centred picture. It's up to us to give non-humans a voice and a stage. In this program created by Nisrine Mbarki, we give the floor to the non-human elements of our world. It was an existentially poetic evening in which the world was experienced from a different, more complete, perspective.

    4:36 - Shishani (Netherlands), song performance I.
    10:24 - Vamba Sherif (Netherlands), interview.
    24:44 - Shishani, song performance II.
    28:40 - Sulaiman Addonia (Belgium), video reading.
    35:57 - Annemarie Estor (Belgium), video reading.
    43:43 - Amahl Raphael Khouri (Egypt), video reading.
    49:58 - Amahl Raphael Khouri / Sulaiman Addonia, interview.
    1:12:53 - Vamba Sherif, interview.
    1:18:12 - Shishani, song performance II.

    The term Tout-monde (whole-world), coined by the Caribbean poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011) advocates the use of language and poetry as a tool of resistance. We can look at the world from the point of view of other people, animals, plants and even objects by identifying with them. In the Netherlands, writer Eva Meijer calls on philosophers, writers and artists to get to work on this.

    We discussed this theme with writer and journalist Vamba Sherif who always explores the history of his family in North and West Africa, irrevocably linked to the African earth. In his novel Het land van de vaders (The land of the Fathers) he tells about his native country Liberia, where the religion of nature was adhered to by praying to trees, rocks and rivers.

    We asked three guests to give a voice to beloved non-humans who, in their view, should have one. These include the Eritrean-Ethiopian author Sulaiman Addonia; the Belgian writer and poet Annemarie Estor and the transgender Jordanian playwright living and working in Berlin and Cairo, Amahl Raphael Khouri.

    In their works the search for an individual, free voice plays an important role. They are especially adept at taking on alternative voices that lack the usual perspectives on the world and are therefore of great added value.

    The authors' readings of their stories were filmed on location, in their own habitat by respectively Ahmed El Saaty (Khouri), Shalan Alhamwy (Addonia) en Nils van der Linden (Estor). Afterwards, writer and journalist Chris Keulemans lead a live conversation with Addonia and Khouri to reflect on what issues the assignment raised.

    Shishani brings worlds together with an earthly and powerful voice and was therefore the singer-songwriter par excellence to engage us with the non-human.

    Read here the contributions written for this programme on request of the Winternachten international literature festival The Hague:


    (Find the Dutch-language versions here/Lees hier de Nederlandstalige versies)
    Learn more here:


    Read and watch on here:

    Sulaiman Addonia
    Facebook
    'Murder, migration and mother love, the making of the novelist Sulaiman Addonia, interview, The Guardian, 2019

    Annemarie Estor
    website

    Chris Keulemans
    Facebook
    Video: Chris Keulemans hosts an interview with authors Rosabelle Illes (Aruba) and Antoine de Kom, Winternachten festival 2020

    Amahl Raphael Khouri
    Video: conversation with Amahl Raphael Khouri; host: Alice Guthrie, Arts Canteen, July 2020

    Nisrine Mbarki
    Facebook
    Video, from 58'40'': recitation by Nisrine Mbarki in Fatena's Poëziësalon, December 2020

    Vamba Sherif
    website

    Shishani
    website
    YouTube-channel Shishani

  • Winternachten 2021

    #BacktoEarth: Tout-monde (Whole World)

    With: Amahl Raphael Khouri, Annemarie Estor, Chris Keulemans, Nisrine Mbarki, Shishani, Sulaiman Addonia, Vamba Sherif

    The image we have of our world is purely human, making it human-centric. It's up to us to offer non-humans a voice and a stage. This program created by Nisrine Mbarki gave the floor to the non-human elements of our world. It was an existentially poetic evening to experience the world from a different, more holistic, perspective.

    The term Tout-monde (whole world), coined by the Caribbean poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant (1928-2011), advocates the use of language and poetry as a tool of resistance. We can see the world from the point of view of other people, animals, plants and even objects by identifying with them. In the Netherlands, writer Eva Meijer calls on philosophers, writers and artists to get to work on this.

    We discussed this theme with writer and journalist Vamba Sherif, who is continually seeking the history of his family in North and West Africa, irrevocably linked to the African earth. In his novel Het land van de vaders (The Land of the Fathers) he tells about his native country of Liberia, where since time immemorial a religion of nature gave worship to trees, rocks and rivers.

    We asked three authors to give a voice to beloved non-humans. These were the Eritrean-Ethiopian author Sulaiman Addonia; the Belgian essayist and poet Annemarie Estor; and the Jordanian transgender playwright living and working in Berlin and Cairo, Amahl Raphael Khouri. In their works, the search for an individual, free voice plays an important role. All three are especially adept at taking on alternative voices lacking in the usual perspectives on the world, and therefore of great value.

    The authors read their resulting stories on locaion, in their own habitat, and were filmed by Ahmed El Saaty (Khouri), Shalan Alhamwy (Addonia) en Nils van der Linden (Estor). Afterwards, writer and journalist Chris Keulemans led a live conversation with Addonia and Khouri to reflect on what thoughts the assignment raised.

    With an earthy and powerful voice, Shishani brought disparate worlds together and was thereby the ideal singer-songwriter to engage us with the non-human.

    Read the pieces commissioned for this program by the Winternachten International Literature Festival The Hague here:


    (Find the Dutch-language versions here/Lees hier de Nederlandstalige versies)


    More background:

    Sulaiman Addonia
    Facebook
    'Murder, Migration and Mother Love, the Making of the Novelist Sulaiman Addonia, interview, The Guardian, 2019

    Annemarie Estor
    website

    Chris Keulemans
    Facebook
    Video: Chris Keulemans interviews authors Rosabelle Illes (Aruba) and Antoine de Kom (Surinam), Winternachten Festival 2020

    Amahl Raphael Khouri
    Video: conversation with Amahl Raphael Khouri; host: Alice Guthrie, Arts Canteen, July 2020

    Nisrine Mbarki
    Facebook
    Video, as of 58'40'': performance by Nisrine Mbarki in Fatena's Poëziësalon, December 2020

    Vamba Sherif
    website

    Shishani
    website
    YouTube-channel Shishani