Shahrazad - Stories for life

photo: © Hawta Muhammadali / www.hautap.se

Finally -
unlike what hadn't been usual for him -
my darling smiled at her name.
The universe celebrated by adding two extra skies
and butterflies
wore wings
of pure freedom -
Thanks,
said the forests
as they combed their hair with the wind -
Thanks,
said the seagulls
as they shook the fatigue of those first migrations

off their wings -
Thanks, said the waves,
as they performed their dance
in an oceanic key of passion -
Wheat fields stirred
and dreams tamed the storms
and God retook his throne again

Finally,
and like what had been usual till then,
the guard's voice gurgled
making known the end of the visit
the prison grilles close her
eyes
and the walls don
a hue of deep shame

26 January 1993 ( Saydnaya Prison)

Faraj Bayrakdar's biography

Letters to Europe
a journey of discovery

Welcome to the Shahrazad website, a free space in Europe for writers from all over the world to tell their stories and to be heard.

Shahrazad - stories for life presents voices from Irak.

By Peter Vermeersch

Dear Europe, It doesn't happen often, but sometimes I see you from the window in the plane. Far below you lie, stretched out and quiet, as though you were my slumbering beloved. I see a web of fields and oval towns, with hair-fine roads, mountains like white fists, long rivers glinting in the morning sun. And then I wonder what it would be like to really long for you. How it would be if I couldn't just take you for granted, having to do my best for you because you were still not mine. I try to look through the eyes of an outsider. Perhaps the mist and rarefied air up there make me dream: that you're still young and smooth and naive so that you can still become whatever you like and that your inhabitants in their ant-sized cars and houses like pebbles, cherish you like a newborn child. Shall I hide away in this machine so that I can be with you? Freeze myself permanently to the wheels? Later, when the plane has landed, I walk towards you through long, clean halls, between businessmen with laptops and tourists in shorts and loose shirts. I see the others there, too: large families with children, with all their possessions, men with crumpled documents. Those are the ones I have to leave behind because you won't keep me waiting. Even if your reception is somewhat cool and the man behind the counter doesn't return your smile, he nods at me and just lets me through. Sometime I wonder what it must be like realize fully what cruel privilege lies concealed in the nod of that official.

Casa Refugio in Mexico City has been an associate member of ICORN since 2006. ICORN/Shahrazad delegates and guest writers flew in from Europe to a warm welcome and an intense programme of readings and workshops.

Poetry and music launched ICORN’s third General Assembly in May. Held in Stavanger – European City of Culture 2008 and home to ICORN headquarters – the two-day assembly introduced the new Council of Writers and Experts and the Shahrazad-Stories for Life project.

Turkish-born writer, Moris Farhi, examines "the profession of death".

How does Europe live up to the ideals enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? The first European Hospitality Tribunal examines the record.