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.
The Shaharazad travellers from Europe included Cuban-born poet, Carlos Alberto Aguilera (guest writer in Frankfurt); Salem Zenia from Algeria (guest writer in Barcelona), ICORN co-ordinator, Raffaella Salierno (Barcelona) and ICORN manager, Helge Lunde. They were warmly welcomed by Casa Refugio’s executive director, Philippe Ollé-Laprune, and administrator, Adriana Romero.
Casa Refugio hosted Winds of Exile, a poetry reading in front of a packed audience, featuring Aguilera and Zenia together with Xhevdet Bajraj (Kosovo/Mexico City), Koulsy Lamko (Chad/Mexico City) and the Mexican poet, Francisco Hernández. All the readings were in Spanish, except for Salem Zenia, whose poems were read in the Amazigh language and translated into Spanish by Hernández.
Casa Refugio also programmed a series of intense workshops between the ICORN/Shahrazad visitors and Mexican-based writers, publishers and intellectuals. They exchanged experiences of exile, examined the ambiguities of exile and explored the possibilities for promoting and publishing the work of exiled writers. The workshops also produced concrete proposals for opening more casa refugios in Mexico and beyond.
Throughout the visit, the bonds between ICORN and Casa Refugio were drawn tighter, the relationship deepened and extended. With its writers-in-residence, bookshop, excellent restaurant and meeting rooms, Casa Refugio is an inspiring model of how other Cities of Refuge might be developed.
