Writers in Exile – Writing is freedom

Najem Wali, you are a member of the PEN Center Germany, one of the vice presidents since May 2023. What is the mission of the Writers in Exile program and what help can the PEN Club provide?

The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and the German PEN Center help authors in need to come to Germany. This is done in collaboration with the Foreign Office and German consulates around the world. Writers receive a monthly stipend and a furnished apartment in various cities, they receive help in everyday life, and contacts with the cultural scene are established. Currently, 15 scholarship holders have the opportunity to pursue their literary work free from persecution and threats.

In the foreword to the anthology “25 Years of Writers in Exile« You write that many great works of world literature were written in exile, but they are not about geographical exile, but rather talk about the idea of ​​man’s eternal banishment and his homelessness in society. Every artist is an exile. Do you consider exile as the writer’s homeland?

Yes, exile is home for me… Adam and Eve are our great-great-grandparents. When they were exiled, banished from paradise, they could no longer return. And we are the fruit of this banishment.

Interview

Since 1999, the German PEN has been supporting authors who are persecuted in their countries of origin and find refuge in Germany with its Writers in Exile program.
The Iraqi writer I rent Walihimself in exile in Germany since 1980, has put together an anthology to mark the 25th anniversary of the Writers in Exile program: »25 Years of Writers in Exile. Endangered voices of a world in danger.« It brings together texts from four continents: Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe.

You think that it doesn’t have to be important for the writer to think about “home” and “exile” in the literal sense. What is more important is to think about the conditions of artistic creation. But aren’t they particularly tough in a foreign country?

Yes, exile is a hard thing. I know many colleagues who became addicted to alcohol, could no longer write, and became depressed. Exile is dangerous and life-threatening, it requires a lot of strength…

You have now published eight novels in Germany, the most recent from 2024, “City of Blades,” which you wrote for the first time in German. Isn’t a writer lost in a foreign country without his native language?

Language is not grammar, spelling and dictation. Language is a way of thinking, even philosophy, especially when it comes to the German language. The place determines the way you think, how you express yourself… After so long, Germany is no longer a foreign country to me. Language is the home of a writer. I feel well at home in both languages: Arabic and German.

The Turkish writer Aslı In many texts, Erdoğan gives voice to their lostness in the world. The 57-year-old was persecuted in her homeland, was imprisoned and tortured and has now lived in Germany for years. Turkish President Erdoğan seems like a symbol of the misfortune of displaced people; you can read about it in a text by her. On the other hand, you send hopeful signs when you think about “freedom and exile”.

I believe a writer has to be a globetrotter. He is always a traveler, in his head or through the world. And writing, literature is freedom.

Doesn’t that sound overly optimistic?

Exile is an exercise. In the 45 years since my escape, I have experienced a lot – and I fear less. This is where this spirit of resistance comes from. Thanks to exile there is this freedom. For me, literature and writing are freedom. When I look at exile, for me it is a positive place, not negative.

After your arrival in Hamburg, you studied German literature and specialized in the topic of “exile literature”. This enabled you to compare your own situation with names and role models from the displacement. A wide field, right?

Yes, Dante, the author of the “Divine Comedy,” was already banished. Let’s look at German literature: the longed-for prize here is the Büchner Prize. But Georg Büchner did not publish any work in Germany. All in exile.

Is that comforting?

There is strength in despair, let’s put it that way. Let’s take Latin American literature. Gabriel García Márquez: He wrote all his works in Paris and Barcelona. The Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa: a global citizen. The Irishman James Joyce wrote in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Or the Lost Generation: Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote – they wrote their best works in Paris.

The anthology is divided into three chapters: “A look at home”, “Path into exile” and the longest chapter, more than 100 pages long: “At home in exile”. How threatening is the living situation today, even in exile, when Europe is moving further and further to the right?

The situation has become very complicated. If Europe, the continent of enlightenment and human rights, abandons its principles, what should be said about the rest of the world? As writers and defenders of free speech, we can only express our concern, our horror, our disgust at the symptoms of an infection that leads to the ghosts of the past, to the dictatorships of the 20th century and their methods.

Your anthology tells a lot about the suffering and loss of displaced people. But do you actually see exile as a benefit for yourself?

I owe exile for learning several languages. I can speak German now, I can speak Spanish because I studied Spanish literature. I gained all this in exile. The dictator, Saddam Hussein, thought that if he banished us, me or my colleagues, then he would win. In the end he lost. He was found in a hole. And I live here and breathe the free air and keep writing.

Najem Wali (ed.): 25 years of Writers in Exile. Endangered voices of a world in danger. Anthology. Secession-Verlag, 240 pages, hardcover, €25.

»Adam and Eve are our great-great-grandparents. We are the fruit of their banishment from paradise.”

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