Shahrazad - Stories for life

Program TBC

This year, the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN, an important ICORN ally, celebrates 50 years of defending freedom of expression around the world with a year-long campaign - Because Writers Speak their Minds. As part of this campaign, the Committee looks back on 50 emblematic cases illustrating where and how and why they have worked. One case featured among these, is the case of poet Mansur Rajih, who became the first ICORN Guest Writer in Stavanger City of Refuge in 1998. On this occasion, Shahrazad - stories for life is happy to present an interview with Rajih, and a collection of his poetry.

Mansur Rajih: A Poet and Human in Exile

(Interviewed by Shady Manasrah)

The Wound

"The sun also shines from here",
his finger pointing to his heart
his eyes rimmed with tears

Mansur Rajih is an Arab Yemeni poet. A revolutionary writer and political activist, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a faked crime he did not commit. In 1998 he was released from prison after a long international campaign in which the Norwegian government participated along with Amnesty International and International PEN who paid great efforts to release him.

He came to Stavanger City of Refuge, where he since then has published several poetic writings such as "Horoscope of Prison? Horoscope of Love." in 2000. Most of his poetry is an anthology of love. Now, he writes from exile about the life in a western country, strange to his country and different in many ways. He says: "Poetry is a struggle for freedom, therefore it is a lifelong program." 

And Yet They Sing

The world is more beautiful than we can imagine
The world is a river
and the atmosphere is a bird's song
and green trees
The tiny movement of the leaves
is a fine song
Dreams without borders
love
morning
the progression of seasons

How did you start in a strange country which is different from Yemen in so many ways?

"There is an age when every human being discovers and experiences life in its different levels, forms, life contradictions, difficulties and also happy times. Sadly, I was in prison at that age, from the time I was 24 years old until I was 40. Since the first moment in Stavanger I felt I had to start over again from a point even below zero. My body weight was 36 kilos. I don't have any qualifications except my history and my dreams. I didn't know the language to communicate with the Norwegian society, which is totally different from the Yemeni society. It was very difficult in the beginning, I felt like I was in a big beautiful prison of silent life because I couldn't communicate with the people. I was in an endless circle of silence."

Eiganes*

Here, in this quiet, the trees are proud of themselves
Longing eats at the heart
There is no life in exile
Here, the sound has no echo
The poem flees from between your hands,
flees to the heat of Yemen
Love is blocked by questions
what does get through is strangled by frost
A new morning over you, the silent city
Pain wars pain within the heart
This stretch of time eats at the mind

The wind brings nothing to the banished man,
and leaving, it carries nothing hence.

(* A residential area in Stavanger)

Kurset ledes av forfatterne Odveig Klyve (Norge) og Mansur Rajih (Yemen/Norge), og går over fire kvelder.