On May 21, the literary event series #Vorzeichen [Accidental Portents] will host authors Lahya Aukongo and Sam Zamrik for a reading and discussion of queer poetry, Black East German and Namibian (hi)stories, tropes, and lyrical imagery between Damascus and Berlin. A comparative reading will bring the work, writings, and experiences of these two poets together in dialog, seeking connections between the separate archives of Black writers and writers of color in Germany.

The conversation will be moderated by literary critic and independent scholar Dr Maha El Hissy who is curating the series for the Goethe-Institute of Northwest Europe in 2024. Discussions will take place in German and be broadcast over Zoom. If you are in Berlin, you can experience the conversation live at diffrakt, a collectively run space that organizes and promotes conversations. Following the event, a recording will be made available on the #Vorzeichen website. Attendance of the event (online and in person) is always free and open to all lovers of German-language literature.

Lahya Aukongo

Persistently poetic, though rarely rhymed, Lahya Aukongo’s collection Buchstabengefühle [Alphabetic Feelings] contends with themes ranging from collective and personal traumas to colonization, Blackness, experiences of discrimination, privilege, and love. What color is decolonized anger? Can the letters of the alphabet feel? Musical symbols between the verses provide a constant reminder that poetry and literature are a bodily experience and spoken word draws life from rhythms pounded on the floor.
  Lahya Aukongo is a Black, intersectionally-entangled and interdisciplinary artist. Lived social realities are reflected in Lahya’s art and political engagement and Lahya’s life includes One World Poetry Night, the books Kalungas Kind [Kalunga’s Kid], Buchstabengefühle – eine poetische Einmischung [Letters – A Poetic Intervention], numerous zines, the eBook Sperrlinien [Dividing Lines], and much more. The contents of these works touch on deprivileging, decolonization, healing and collective love, praxis, and vulnerability, along with creative-biographical writing. Lahya’s bed lives in Berlin.
 

Sam Zamrik

The language is dense, the verses, melodious. Silence reverberates. Between the lines—ongoing reflections on asylum, curiosity, death, poverty, queerness, and a thirst for knowledge. The banality of daily life vanishes here. In the collection Ich bin nicht [I Am Not], Sam Zamrik unfurls a history between Damascus and Berlin with every detail, every remain: a history that cannot be apolitical.
  Sam Zamrik is a poet, musician, and translator. Sam worked as a band manager and songwriter in the underground music scene 'New Wave of Syrian Metal'. Sam’s texts have been published through the WIR MACHEN DAS [We Are Doing It] initiative 'Weiter Schreiben' [Writing On], as well as in German periodicals such as taz and Tagesspiegel. Sam lives and studies in Berlin. Ich bin nicht is Sam’s first poetry collection.