Goethe-Institut im Exil
Literatures in Exile: Ahmad Katlesh & Vanessa Vu
SA 9.11, 19H ACUD Studio
free entrance
What traces do experiences of war, flight, asylum and racism leave behind? How do they inscribe themselves into the body, the psyche, the way we live and love?
Syrian writer Ahmad Katlesh, who came to Germany in 2016, and journalist Vanessa Vu, the child of Vietnamese guest workers who spent several years in an asylum seekers’ home in Lower Bavaria, met while dancing tango. For over two years, they exchanged emails in an effort to better – understand one another – he in Arabic, she in German.
Their joint essay Komm dahin, wo es still ist. Eine Erkundung will be presented by Ahmad Katlesh and Vanessa Vu in a multimedia performance as part of the “Literatures in Exile” series on November 9 at Kunsthaus ACUD. It is the personal story of two lovers, about ghosts and borders, internet cafés and misunderstandings, and about what it means when politics consistently invades private life.
Vanessa Vu is a journalist. She was born in Eggenfelden in 1991 and spent her childhood in a home for asylum seekers in Pfarrkirchen. She has been working as an editor at ZEIT ONLINE since 2017. In reports, essays and analyses, she focuses on issues relating to migration, racism and social justice. She also hosts a monthly discussion series (Klassenzimmer) on poverty and classism at the Schaubühne Berlin. From 2018–2023, she co-hosted the Vietnamese-German podcast Rice and Shine. She has been awarded with the Theodor Wolff Prize, the Helmut-Schmidt-Journalistenpreis and the Lessing-Preis für Kritik for her works.
Ahmad Katlesh is a writer. He was born in Damascus in 1988 and studied mathematics there. After the Syrian revolution, he fled to Jordan in 2013 and worked there as a journalist. He came to Germany in 2016 with the aid of a scholarship from the Heinrich-Böll-Haus. He has published three books with short stories and poems in Arabic. His first book in German, the poetry collection Das Gedächtnis der Finger, was published in 2020. Therefor the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste awarded him with the Chamisso-Publikationsstipendium. He also reads literary texts for millions of Arabic-speaking listeners on the literary platform Tiklam.
The copyright of the picture is: Ahmad Katlesh & Vanessa Vu © Laurin Gutwin
The “Literatures in Exile” series is sponsored by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.