Many texts have landed their authors in prison or were composed during or after their time behind bars: Rosa Luxemburg wrote essays and letters, Nâzım Hikmet translated Tolstoy’s War and Peace and wrote poems. The experience of the extra pressure put on thinkers in an authoritarian system connects the artist and journalist Zehra Doğan, writer Aslı Erdoğan and journalist Can Dündar. They share the same fate of living in exile, charged with being »enemies of the state« for their work in Turkey. What does it mean for a society, and for the work of artists, writers and journalists, when thoughts are grounds for conviction? The panellists discuss this and more with the sociologist Nil Mutluer, who lives in exile herself, is one of the first signatories of »Academics for Peace – Germany« and researches migration and the diaspora as a scientist.
undoing prison is funded by the State of Berlin, Hauptstadtkulturfonds.
The core program of the festival Re:Writing the Future is organized by Allianz Kulturstiftung, in cooperation with DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, in partnership with ICORN – International Cities of Refuge Network. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe of the City of Berlin.
To the complete program of Writing the Future
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Aslı Erdoğan 