Discussion
Literatures in Exile: Ma Thida & Mohamed Anwar

Tue, 14.05.2024
7:00 PM ACUD Studio

 

What do the work, experiences and realities of authors who have had to leave their home countries due to war or political repression and now live in Berlin or Germany look like? In regular evening events in the Literatures in Exile series, two authors from different countries present their texts and discuss their experiences of exile as well as opportunities and challenges in the (German) literary scene.  

On 14 May 2024, writer and human rights activist Ma Thida from Myanmar and the Egyptian-Sudanese comic artist and political cartoonist Mohamed Anwar will share the stage. The evening will be moderated by Per Brandt (Martin Roth Initiative).

The focus will be on the mediation and examination of the writers' artistic positions and works. In addition, structural questions will also be discussed, such as the connection to literary and artistic scenes, language and translation challenges or the examination of identity and artistic creation in a new environment.

Guests

© Ole Witt

Ma Thida is a Burmese writer, human rights activist, surgeon and former political prisoner. In Myanmar, she is best known as a leading intellectual who addresses the political situation in the country in her books, which was often perceived as a threat by the government. She was President of PEN Myanmar until the military coup in September 2022. She recently became a fellow of the Writers-in-Exile Programme of the PEN Centre Germany. Ma Thida studied medicine in the 1980s, became a surgeon and later worked at the Muslim Free Hospital, which provides medical care to poor people. She earned a reputation as a progressive writer at a young age. 

She wrote her books under the pseudonym Suragamika, which means "brave traveller". However, the political nature of her texts quickly made her a target of the repressive regime. In October 1993, Ma Thida was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "endangering public peace, contact with illegal organisations and disseminating illegal literature". Ma Thida actually supported the pro-democracy movement centred around Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. She contracted tuberculosis while serving her sentence under inhumane conditions. 

As her health deteriorated and political pressure, including from human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and PEN International, increased, Ma Thida was finally able to leave prison after five years, six months and six days. 

She then spent some time teaching in the USA and has occasionally returned to Myanmar, but not since 2021, where the security situation is still serious.  

Ma Thida is the recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Awards, the Honoured Award from American Association of Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Freedom of Speech Award from the Norwegian Writers Union, among others. 

© Sondos Seif

Mohamed Anwar is an Egyptian-Sudanese comic artist and political cartoonist. Anwar is part of the new wave of young political cartoonists who emerged in the newly established private media in 2006 during the last years of former dictator Hosni Mubarak. 

In 2007, Anwar began his professional career as a cartoonist for Al-Badeel, an Egyptian daily newspaper, Anwar has worked for several Egyptian and Arabic newspapers and magazines. In 2010, he moved to Almasry-Alyoum, Egypt's largest-circulation daily newspaper, where he was the head of the cartoons department.
The Egyptian revolution that broke out in 2011 was a pivotal point in Anwar's development as an artist. His work defends the values of social justice, freedom of expression and equality in Egyptian society and often opposed the voices of political Islam and the military regime that dominated the political scene. As a result, his cartoons attracted international attention.

In 2017, Anwar was awarded one of the most prestigious prizes for Egyptian journalism, the Mustafa and Ali Amin Prize, as the best political cartoonist in Egypt.
 
After the major setback of the political reforms of the Arab Spring in 2011, Anwar was arrested in 2019 and deported from Egypt. He moved to Lebanon, then settled in Berlin and is currently the creative director of CORRECTIV,  a German investigative media house, where he published his first graphic novel “Erdogan” - a biography of the Turkish president. A four years project which he worked on with the Turkish journalist Can Dündar. The graphic novel was translated into seven languages.

MODERATION

© Goethe-Institut

Per Brandt is the Goethe-Institut’s representative in the leadership of the Martin Roth-Initiative (MRI), a protection program for artists and cultural workers at risk who are committed to the freedom of art, democracy and human rights. It is operated by the ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) and the Goethe-Institut on behalf of Germany’s Federal Foreign Office. Since he joined the initiative in 2022, the MRI has been expanding its crisis reaction capacities and global funding activities, including the development of hubs and fast tracks. Both Sudan and Myanmar are among the countries that the MRI has worked on in this period. Previously, he was the director of the Goethe-Institut Novosibirsk, which had a focus on promoting civil society and contemporary art before the institute was forced to minimise its presence in Russia in the wake of the full scale invasion of Ukraine and the accompanying persecution of opposition within Russia. He has studied Comparative Literature in Copenhagen, Paris, and Berlin. 

The LITERATURES IN EXILE series is sponsored by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.