Free at Last: A Day of Decolonised Life

Are these fairy tales or is this finally a decolonised world? Writers Unlimited asked eight authors to sum up a day of colonisation-free existence in poetry or prose. Eight days of liberation, each in their own way.

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Information

Date and time Friday 17 January 2020 23:00 tot 23:40 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

Exciting! Are these fairy tales or is this finally a decolonised world? Writers Unlimited asked a very international group of eight authors to sum up a day of colonisation-free existence in poetry or prose. Eight days of liberation, each in their own way.

In this event you will see and hear Akwasi, the Dutch rapper, actor and writer of Ghanaian background; Barbaros Altuğ, the Turkish writer, journalist and literary agent; Asmaa Azaizeh, Palestinian poet, journalist and cultural curator born in Lower Galilee in Israel's north; Petina Gappah, lawyer and writer from Zimbabwe; Cağla Meknuze, jounalist and poet from Turkey; Jolyn Phillips, writer, poet and composer from South Africa; Simon(e) van Saarloos, American-Dutch writer and philosopher; and Vamba Sherif, Liberian-Dutch writer and journalist.

The authors present their work in their preferred writing language or mother tongue; Dutch and English translations are projected simultaneously.

Line-up

Simon(e) van Saarloos

is a writer, artistic collaborator and curator. They are the author of Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (2023); Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021) and Playing Monogamy (2019) as well as several books in Dutch: Herdenken herdacht (2019); Enz. Het Wildersproces (2018); the novel De vrouw die (2016); the collection of columns Ik deug / deug niet ( 2015) and Het monogame drama (2015). . Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. A current PhD candidate in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, they are interested in Black feminist engagements with quantum physics and focused on the rhetorical (im)possibility of existence without defense. Van Saarloos is currently writing a new book for AK Press, titled Trans Despair: Staying Unrelated and Insecure.

Go the website of Simon(e) van Saarloos
Instagram: @svansaarloos
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Vamba Sherif

(Liberia, 1973) is a novelist, essayist, journalist and film critic. His debut novel Land of the Fathers (1999) is partly based on his grandmother's stories and deals with the clash between slaves returning from the US and other Liberians. The novel The Black Napoleon (2015) portrays Samori Touré, who founded the Wasulu-empire in western Africa in the 19th century. His journalism, including film reviews, appears in publications such as The New York Times, Trouw and One World. Together with  Ebissé Rouw he compiled Zwart (Black, 2018), a collection of stories by Afro-European authors from the Low Countries. Ongekende liefde (Unprecedented Love), in which he tells his life story to his ten-year-old daughter Bendu, was published in 2021. Sherif's historical novel The Emperor’s Son (2023) follows Zaiwulo, a young prodigy who trains under sage Talata of the Haidarah family in Musadu. Entangled in the intrigues of Emperor Samori, the 'Black Napoleon,' Zaiwulo matures into a formidable soldier.
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Petina Gappah

(Zimbabwe, 1971) debuted in 2009 with the short-story collection An Elegy for Easterly, followed by her first novel The Book of Memory (2015) and another story collection, Rotten Row (2016). Her new book Out of Darkness, Shining Light tells the story of the perilous, months-long trek made in 1873 by 69 workers to transport the body of the explorer David Livinstone from central Africa to the Zanzibar coast, so it could eventually be buried in England. "I write the history of the black people of Zimbabwe, those about whom nobody ever speaks." Gappah studied law in Zimbabwe and Cambridge, worked as a lawyer, and lives in Berlin as artist-in-residence. She has won many international prizes for her work.
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Barbaros Altuğ

(Turkey, 1966) is a writer and journalist who has been published in various Turkish newspapers and magazines. A collection of his articles, Some Like It Black, was published in 2012. In his 2014 novella We’re Fine Here, three young Turkish men emigrate from their country after the Gezi protests. His novel Wounds in My Soul, about the Armenian Genocide, is slated to be published in 2020. He is working on a novel that portrays four generations of a Berlin family between the years of 1960 and 2010, as well as on a novella about the lives of intellectuals who fled Turkey after the attempted 2016 coup d'etat. Altuğ has been selected for a residency at Writers Unlimited, January 2020, as part of the exchange programme Be Mobile, Create Together.
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Jolyn Phillips

(South Africa, 1992) is a writer, poet, composer, singer and activist. Her 2016 debut collection of short stories, Tjieng Tjang Tjerries, received critical praise, was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize for best debut, and won the NIHSS Prize for best fiction. Phillips herself adapted the stories for the stage. In 2017 she published Radbraak, a collection of poetry in Afrikaans, which won the 2018 UJ Prize for best debut and earned a nomination for the Elizabeth Eybers Prize. She set some of these stories to music. More of her poems and short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is currently graduating from the University of the Western Cape with a PhD in creative writing and teaching African literature at the University of Johannesburg.
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Çağla Meknuze

(Turkey, 1985) is a poet living and working in Istanbul. She served as a reporter, editor and producer for NTV. Between 2008 and 2011, she was invited to participate in the group exhibition Young, New, Different at Gallery Zilberman. Her poetry series The Body of Ave won the 2015 Varlık Magazine Yaşar Nabi Nayır Youth Award and was published as a book. Her poems have appeared in many literary magazines, both in Turkey and abroad, including the 2017-2018 World Poetry Almanac, which includes 100 poets from 70 countries. Her poetry series The Body of Ave won the notable category of the 2015 Varlık Magazine Yaşar Nabi Nayır Youth Award and was published as a book. Her poetry is also available in English, Dutch, Croatian, Kurdish and Hebrew. As part of her selection for Be Mobile - Create Together, Meknuze will be residing in the Netherlands at Writers Unlimited January 2020.
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Akwasi

(1988) is a rapper, writer, poet, producer, television host and more. He started rapping at fourteen and founded the group Zwart Licht (Black Light). This group released albums including Leeroy Draait Door (Leeroy Goes Crazy, 2012) and Bliksem (Lightening, 2018). As owner of the Dutch record label Neerlands Dope, he offers young musical talents the opportunity to move from the regional to the national stage. He leads workshops in writing, drama, rap and stage presentation in schools, and acts in Dutch theatre and television series. Akwasi is also a writer, scriptwriter, poet and spoken-word artist. He created ReChill, an innovative programme for children about meditation, for SchoolTV. In his short-story debut Laten we het er maar niet over hebben (Let's Not Talk About It, 2018), he proves himself a masterful storyteller.
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Asmaa Azaizeh

(1985) is a Palestinian poet and essayist who became the first Director of the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah in 2012. She currently works as a cultural curator in Haifa. She was born in Lower Galilee, the region in the northern district of Israel and studied English literature and journalism at the University of Haifa. Her first poetry collection, Liwa, was published in Amman in 2011, after she had won the A.M. Qatan Foundation Award. Four years later the collection As The Woman From Lod Bore Me (2015) was published and in 2019 Do Not Believe Me Were I Talk to You About War. Her poetry has been translated into languages including English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew and Persian.
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Laura Stavinoha

is a vocalist, songwriter, loop artist, vocal coach and producer. As a singer she has sung a variety of genres, from baroque to deep house and from her own pop songs to avant-garde classical. For years she has performed as a classical soprano, in the Netherlands and abroad. Nowadays she strives for an authentic, intuitive use of voice outside the usual traditions. Two EPs of Laura's own work have been released: Sweet Life (2012) and Looping Patterns (2015). As one of the first vocal looping artists in the Netherlands she works with song based live looping: she makes songs by sampling her voice with a loop station.
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Ilonka Reintjens

is a producer and project coordinator for literary events. Before this, she worked as publisher and editor at various publishing houses. She currently is business and artistic leader of the literary festival Meet Me at the Lighthouse on the Dutch island Schiermonnikoog, and for Writers Unlimited as a program coordinator and curator for the Writers Unlimited international literary festival The Hague and the monthly Writers Series.
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