Book of My Life: Benzokarim in conversation with Abdelkader Benali

About The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak.

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Date and time Friday 24 January 2025 20:35 tot 20:55 uur
Location Filmhuis - Studio A
Price SOLD OUT

Writers told us about their favourite book: the book that inspires or touches them, that set their artistic, moral or intellectual compass. In short, the book they would recommend to everyone. Interview: Abdelkader Benali.

Benzokarim talked about The Forty Rules of Love by top author Elif Shafak, participating in Friday Night Unlimited tonight (24 January 2025). The novel, published in 2015 tells about Ella Rubinstein: forty-year-old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a proofreader at a literary agency. Her first assignment, reading a manuscript about the mystic Sufi Rumi, sheds new light on Ella's own life - and on her views on love.

Abdelkader Benali

(Morocco, 1975) is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright and curator. His 1996 debut, Bruiloft aan zee (Wedding By the Sea), was an immediate success. His second novel, De langverwachte (The Long-awaited) won him the prestigious 2003 Libris Literature Award. Benali's subjects vary, but sports and the migrant who never really feels at home are recurring themes. He has written novels about his great passion of running, about his travels, and about migrants' cultural identity (Bad Boy). His work has been published internationally. Recent books include the novel Paradijsvogel boven Hoge Woerd (Bird of Paradise over Hoge Woerd, 2022) and Het andere verhaal (The Other Story, 2022), an essay about his research into 75 years of modern Moroccan art.
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Benzokarim

(1996) is a poet and performer. In 2022, he won the El Hizjra literature prize for poetry and published his debut collection El Ghorba. In it, he talks to his father, mourns his mother and writes poetry about experiences that are recognisable to anyone with a migrant background. His second collection, Ons gaan allemaal (We're all going), has been awarded with the Jan Campert Prize 2025, yearly prize for poetry. As coach of Poetry Circle 070 and editor of Mensen Zeggen Dingen, he is working hard to pave the way for a new generation of world improvers. Benzokarim is Rotterdam's City Poet in 2025 and 2026.

Bekijk de website van Benzokarim
Instagram: @benzokarim_
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