Creative Writing Workshop: Inaam Kachachi in Conversation with Aya Chalabee
Moderated by Hassan Blassim
Hosted in collaboration with Kontula Book City
19.10.2019
Talk: 14:40 – 15:20
Discussion and Q&A: 15:30 16:00
@ Museum of Impossible Forms
Museum of Impossible Forms continues its series of Creative Writing Workshop in collaboration with author Hassan Blasim.
Unlike in the previous series, this workshop is limited to one lecturer, Inaam Kachachi, and one participant, Aya Chalabee, who have been working in correspondence since February. Inaam and Aya represent two different generations – Both born in Baghdad, and both living today in exile.
In this method of prolonged and recurring correspondence facilitated by Hassan Blasim, the two authors write to each other about writing, freedom, language, women, exile and homeland. At the same time, Anaam oversees Aya's new short story.
In October, Inaam Kachachi will travel to Helsinki and meet Aya Chalabi. This will be the first time they meet in person. In this meeting designed as a public gathering and conversation, the two writers will talk about their Literary Correspondence, the workshop process, and read excerpts from their collaboratively written text.
This event is facilitated in collaboration with Kontula Book City Festival. For more info about Kontula Book City Festival: http://www.bookcity.fi/program/
Inaam Kachachi (b. 1956, Baghdad) is a well-known novelist and journalist who lives and works in Paris since the 1970s. She is presently Paris correspondent of Asharq Al-Awsat and Kol Al-Usra newspapers. She has published four novels and two non-fiction books. She made documentary films, one of them about Dr. Naziha Al Dulaimi, the first woman to become a minister in an Arab country. Her first novel, Sawaqi El Quloub was translated to Italian and Persian language, and the second Al-Hafeeda al-Amreekiya (The American Granddaughter) was translated to French, Italian, English, Deutsch, Chinese, and has been shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, 2009. Her novel Tashari was translated to French and Italian and shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, 2014. It got the Lagardere Prize for novel in Paris. Her last novel Al Nabeetha, 2017, was also shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, 2018.
Aya Chalabee (b. 1995, Baghdad) is a short story writer and Finnish literature translator who studies at factually of humanities, Finnish language interpreting and translating. She has worked as a literary translator at Sivuvalo project based in Helsinki. Chalabee has worked with Teos publisher house as a literary translator, and she a member of The Finnish Association of Translators and Interpreters. At the moment, Chalabee is working on her upcoming translation of Finnish children books into Arabic. In 2014, she published her first short story collection, No Sun In Baghdad.
Museum of Impossible Forms is a cultural space, located in Kontula, Helsinki. It is a contested Space and it represents a contact zone, a space of unlearning, formulating identity constructs, norm-critical consciousness and critical thinking. Impossible Forms are those that erase and facilitate the process of transgressing the boundaries/borders between art, politics, practice, theory, the artist and the spectator. For 2019-2020, Museum of Impossible Forms operates under the curatorial theme of ‘The Atlas of Lost Beliefs (For Insurgents, Citizens and Untitled Bodies)’
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Events at the Museum of Impossible Forms are completely free and accessible without prior booking.
Museum of Impossible Forms is accessible by lift with thresholds up to 4cm on the way. The toilet has no thresholds but is not spacious enough to meet accessibility standards. The nearest accessible toilet is located at Kontula metro station.
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