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Festival Line-Up

Tandem Readings and Discussions

Live Special Preview in Brunnenpassage, Vienna
Wednesday: September 8, 2021
Thursday: September 9, 2021

Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Friday: September 24, 2021
Saturday: September 25, 2021

Sulaiman Addonia

Sulaiman Addonia is an Eritrean-Ethiopian-British novelist. His first novel, The Consequences of Love, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, was translated into more than 20 languages.

Silence is My Mother Tongue, his second novel, has been longlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and was a finalist for the 2021 Firecracker Awards in Fiction, and for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award. His third novel, The Seers, will be published in 2023 by Canongate UK & Graywolf USA.


He currently lives in Brussels where he has launched a creative writing academy for refugees and asylum seekers, and the Asmara-Addis Literary Festival (In Exile). He is a columnist for de Standaard, a Belgian newspaper. 

© Photo: Lyse Ishimwe 

Join Sulaiman Addonia in conversation with Canan Marasligil
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 9, 2021
17:30 – 19:00
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 24, 2021
19:00 – 20:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

María Cecilia Barbetta 

María Cecilia Barbetta was born in 1972 in Buenos Aires and grew up in the migrant neighborhood Ballester, where her novel »Nachtleuchten« is set in. There she attended the German school. In 1996 she moved to Berlin and stayed. Her first novel »Änderungsschneiderei Los Milagros« (2008) was awarded, among other awards, the aspekte-Literaturpreis. María Cecilia Barbetta writes in German.


Her second novel, »Nachtleuchten« (2018), set on the eve of a political upheaval, was awarded the Alfred-Döblin-Preis and the Chamisso-Preis/Hellerau and was shortlisted for the Deutscher Buchpreis.

© Photo: Marcus Höhn
https://www.fischerverlage.de/autor/maria-cecilia-barbetta-1005907 

Join María Cecilia Barbetta in conversation with Xoşewîst 
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 8, 2021
15:00-16:30
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 24, 2021
17:00 – 18:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Canan Marasligil

Canan Marasligil (she/her) is a feminist writer, editor, artist, literary translator and curator of cultural programmes, whose practice span from performing to making podcasts (such as Not Loud Enough and A Dreamer’s Night Talks). She is fluent in English, French, Turkish, Dutch, and Spanish and she is active in the fields of literature, comics, cultural criticism and art. Languages and translation are part of everything she does.  


As an intersectional feminist who strives to challenge dominant narratives, she advocates for representation, equality and diversity. Her work has appeared in various media.

Canan regularly performs her poetry and stories on stage and has participated in online and offline exhibitions with her art and photography. She explores creativity through various media and keeps moving between the digital and analogue, always blurring the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. 

Twitter: @ayserin
Instagram: @cananmarasligil
https://cananmarasligil.net/ 

Join Canan Marasligil in conversation with Sulaiman Addonia
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 9, 2021
17:30 – 19:00
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 24, 2021
19:00 – 20:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Barbi Markovic 

Born in 1980 in Belgrade, studied German literature and language, has lived since 2006 in Vienna, 2011/2021 city writer in Graz. In 2009 Markovic made waves with the Thomas Bernhard remix novel “Ausgehen” (Going Out).


In 2016 she published the novel “Superheldinnen” (Superheroines), for which she received the literary prize Alpha, the sponsorship award Adelbert von Chamisso as well as the Priessnitz prize. In 2017 Barbi Markovic read at Bachmann Preis, in 2018 Superheroines were performed on the stage of Volkstheater in Vienna.

Numerous short stories, theater plays and radio dramas. Recently this year appeared Markovic’s newest novel: „Die verschissene Zeit“.  

Social Media: @barbimarkovic

© Photo: Apollonia T. Bitzan 

Join Barbi Markovic in conversation with Seda Tunç
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 8, 2021
18:30 – 20:00
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 25, 2021
19:00 – 20:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Loulou Omer

Born in Tel-Aviv, Loulou Omer moved to Vienna after having lived in Paris, Brussels and Berin. Her multidisciplinary work consists of poetic writing, dance and composition for piano and voice. Loulou Omer creates polyartistic performances and collaborates with various artists from different artistic fields.  


© Photo: Goran Rebic 

Website: loulou-omer.net 
Facebook – Regarding Art: https://m.facebook.com/RegardingArt/?ref=bookmarks 
You Tube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/.UCw_vuURoDV_fei9UUEcRMFw/videos 
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/270058372 

Join Loulou Omer in conversation with Mandakini Pachauri
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 9, 2021
19:15 – 20:45
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 25, 2021
17:00-18:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Mandakini Pachauri

Mandakini Pachauri is an Indian poet and non-fiction writer living at the edge of the Viennese Forest, she teaches yoga and meditation, is socially engaged and works for non-profit organizations. She has also been a digital pioneer and consultant for strategic design for technology. 

“Poetry is another way to unite the diverse realities of life in today’s often confusing world. Countries and cultures of origin are just an entry point into the journey we are all on.”  


She writes predominantly in English and less often in German and Hindi. She has been published in Words and Worlds Magazine (PEN Austria), World Literature Today USA, Berfrois Journal U.K. and most recently in Setu Journal, USA. Currently, she is working on a cross-media book of poetry and photography as well as a literary correspondence in collaboration with other artists and writers.  

She collaborates with the Cedar College Pan-European MFA and is part of The Quarantine Train an international collective of writers from the Indian subcontinent. 

© Photo: Michael Markl 

Join Mandakini Pachauri in conversation with Loulou Omer
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 9, 2021
19:15 – 20:45
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 25, 2021
17:00-18:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Alexandra Pâzgu

Alexandra Pâzgu is born in 1985, Sibiu, Romania is an Romanian and German writing author, dramaturgy theoretician and practitioner interested in structures and concepts that are emerging in intercultural spaces. She writes poetical, performative texts about the life in the cities with a focus on post-representational narration, language and sensation. 

She owns since 2018 a PhD in Theatre and Performing Arts in a cotutelle project between Cluj and Giessen and an MA in Dramatic Writing from the Arts University in Tg. Mureş.

She has received several prizes and scholarships for her writing, the lastest of each, 2018 Finalist Hanz Grazer Stipendium, 2019  Exil Literaturpreis, Vienna, 2020 the prize for dramatic writing „Sofia Nădejde” (by scena.ro) and the „Alexandru Mușina” prize for debut in poetry in Romania, „Neustart Kultur Sonderprogrammförderung” by the Literaturfond Germany.   

She lives and writes in German since 2014 in Vienna, and has been part of several collective writing projects organized by the Wiener Wortstaetten. She is a selected author in Fabula Mundi, a member in the European Theater Convention and member of Freie Bühne Wien. Since 2019 she is cofounder of baldanders theaterkollektiv and Kollektiv Weiter in Vienna. In 2021 Alexandra has been rewarded the „Dramatik Stipendium der Stadt Wien” and writes on the topics of work, migration and posthumanism.  

Join Alexandra Pâzgu in conversation with Soheil Zamani
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 8, 2021
16:45 – 18:15
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 25, 2021
15:00-16:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Seda Tunç

Seda Tunç: born in Turkey, studied English and American literature in Istanbul and Vienna. She has been based in Vienna since 2009. She writes poetry and published her own texts and literary translations in English, Turkish and German in various magazines.

In 2013/14 she obtained the kültür-gemma scholarship in Vienna.
Her first volume of poetry, entitled “welch”, was published by the edition mosaik  (Vienna) in June 2021.  

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/seda.tunc.313  
Instagram: @sea_tunc 

© Photo: Laura Leo Dressel 

Join Seda Tunç in conversation with Barbi Markovic
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 8, 2021
18:30-20:00
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 25, 2021
19:00-20:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Soheil Zamani alias Soleil 

They threw us into the sea 
Without knowing  
That we are fish 
And that our blood-red agility 
Can defy  
The cold menace.  

Born in Iran, Soheil Zamani alias Soleil began writing at the age of 13. He studied music and published his first book “Grandmother’s Songs” when he was 16.  

Since then Soleil has published 7 books. Since 2018 he is been living in Austria and writes poetry and prose in Farsi, Dari, Kurdish, German, Armenian and English. He was awarded, among other awards, the Student Poetry Peace Prize, the International Desert Poetry Award and the  Poetry award for the Voice of Freedom Reporter in Iran. In 2016 he founded the Poetry Slam group “Words” in Iran, which however was soon after banned on political and religious grounds – together with some of his works.  

Join Soheil Zamani in conversation with Alexandra Pâzgu
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 8, 2021
16:45 – 18:15
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 25, 2021
15:00-16:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Xoşewîst

Xoşewîst (pronounced Khoshewist) was born in 1987 in Hasaka, Syria. His official name is Abdulaziz Ramadan. 

He studied English literature and language, International Forced Migration and Parliamentary Issues and Civil Society at the universities in Damascus, Halle, Leipzig and Oxford. Xoşewîst is founder of DOZ e.V. (DOZ International). He lives in Leipzig. 

Leipzigيّاt is his literary debut. 

© Photo: Shirwan Qasim

Social Media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Abdulaziz.Ramadan.DE/ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abdulaziz.ramadan.de/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARamadan_DE 

Join Xoşewîst in conversation with María Cecilia Barbetta
Bridging the Tongues Festival Tandem Reading
September 8, 2021
15:00-16:30
Live Special Preview at Brunnenpassage in Vienna
Free Registration: anemldung@brunnenpassage.at
//
September 24, 2021
17:00 – 18:30
Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Register for free

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Discursive Evening

With: Rubia Salgado (Linz, Austria), Douglas Diegues (Brazil), Myriam Ávila (Brazil)
Translation: Odile Kennel (Germany)

Live Special Preview in Brunnenpassage, Vienna
Friday: September 10, 2021
17:00 – 19:00

Festival Digital Premiere streamed on our website
Friday: September 23, 2021
18:00

Myriam Ávila

Myriam is a professor of literary studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. An expert in literary nonsense, she researched the subject from 1987 to 1989 with Prof. Dr. Winfried Nöth at the Gesamthochschule Kassel (Germany). January/February 2000 she researched the topic “Das Brasilien-Bild im Deutschland der Goethezeit” with a scholarship from the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik/Germany.


Among other writings, she has published the following books: Rima e solução: a poesia nonsense de Lewis Carroll e Edward Lear (Rhyme and Solution – the Nonsense Poetry of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear), O retrato na rua (The Portrait on the Street), Douglas Diegues por Myriam Ávila (Douglas Diegues after Myriam Ávila), Diários de Escritores (Writers in their Diaries).

She has also translated several books and essays from English and German into Portuguese. At the moment she is preparing the translation into Portuguese of the book by the Hungarian author Zóltan Lesi In Women’s Clothing.

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Douglas Diegues 

Douglas Diegues (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 1965) was born of love to a brazilian father and a paraguayan mother. 

He is a poet, editor, translator, author of “Dá gusto andar desnudo por estas selvas” (It’s a pleasure to walk naked through these jungles), considered the first book of poetry in Portuñol in the field of Latin American literature. 

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Odile Kennel 

Odile Kennel lives in Berlin as poet, novelist and translator. She writes in German and French and likes to make place for many other languages in her texts. 

Recently she published a volume of poems entitled Hors Texte“ (Verlagshaus Berlin 2019).

You can read her contributions on her blog: https://odilekennel.blogspot.com/ and follow her work in the digital realm @solidenelke. 

© Photo: Charlotte Werndt 

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Rubia Salgado

Rubia Salgado is adult educator, author and activist working in self-organized contexts. Focus of her activity lies on critical educational and cultural work within the migrant society.

She is co-founder and long-standing member of the self-organization maiz in Linz.


Since 2015 she is project coordinator and educator (Focus basic education with migrants) in the association das kollektiv, focusing on: critical educational, counseling and cultural work by and with migrants.

© Photo: Pat Costa
Facebook: @RubiaSalgado

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Literary Walks
The City of Vienna

15:00-16:30
Saturday: September 18, 2021
Sunday: September 19, 2021
Sunday: September 26, 2021
Register for free

Jaqueline Ejiji 

Jaqueline Ejiji studied history, German literature and political science in Hannover. In the last years her work focused on cultural mediation.

She writes, lives and works in Vienna, where she is active in the association WE DEY e.V., which gives black and artists of color the opportunity to present their artworks in self-determined contexts.

As a Kültür Gemma!-fellow in 2019 she developed and presented monologues, which she wrote from the perspective of Josefine Soliman. Currently she works as costumer adviser in a telecommunication company and looks forward to coming new projects in the artistic and cultural field.  

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Samuel Mago

Samuel Mago, born in 1996 in Budapest. Since 2000 he lives in Vienna. He is vice-president of HÖR, currently studies transcultural communication at the University of Vienna. 

He is Rom*nja-activist and author in der edition exil (Vienna). 
 


Samuel Mago comes from a Rom*nja-family with Jewish origins in the maternal line. He works as anti-racism trainer and for ORF-productions. 

© Photo: “Osman Çetin / @cetinovska” 

Facebook: Samuel Mago
Instagram: sam_magoo 

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Workshops

Workshop Sprache handelt with Negin Rezaie
10:00 – 14:30
Saturday: August 21, 2021
Sunday: August 22, 2021
Saturday: August 28, 2021
Sunday: August 29, 2021

Workshop Erzähllust – Literatur so wie sie in keinem Buch steht
with Weina Zhao
15:30 – 20:00
Saturday: August 21, 2021
Sunday: August 22, 2021
Saturday: August 28, 2021
Sunday: August 29, 2021

Negin Rezaie

Negin Rezaie is a visual and performing artist, curator, innovator and activist. 

After she had to flee from Iran to Austria in 2015, she has since been involved in a variety of artistic, museum and musical projects.

In the meantime, she also realizes her own projects in various constellations. 

Instagram: @negin.r.at

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021

Weina Zhao

Weina was born in Peking and grew up in Vienna. She studied East Asian Studies and is an author and filmmaker who tries to challenge our viewing and thinking habits.



Her work has appeared in Augustin, Literarische Diverse and Migrazine. She speaks German, Chinese, English and Spanish, and she can order food in Korean and Japanese.

She loves vegetables and Star Trek, and is co-founder of the zine Perilla.  

Instagram: @hamamelismollis

Bridging The Tongues Festival 2021