Shahrazad - Stories for life

Guest Writer, Stavanger City of Refuge 2011 - present

Poet and writer from Afghanistan. More information will be published when the safety of the writer and her family is confirmed. Please check back later.

. . is a pseudonym for a current ICORN Guest Writer whose identity cannot be revealed at this time. We hope that we will be able to present this person's real name and writing credentials in the near future. Please check back.

Guest writer, Palma City of Refuge 2009 - present
Guest writer, Grosseto City of Refuge 2007 - 2009

Rhoda Mashavave is a journalist from Zimbabwe. She has worked as an information officer for Movement Democratic Change, the biggest opposition party in Zimbabwe. She is a member of the Union of Journalists and the Media Institute of Southern Africa. Mashavave was put under surveillance, threatened, arrested and interrogated about her work.

Guest writer, Stavanger City of Refuge 2007 - 2009

Otba Fathalla Mahmoud is a writer and journalist. In his home country Iraq, he wrote about politics, society and culture. After 2003, he thought the situation would be different for journalists, but his work put him in severe troubles. In 2006 he had to flee to Syria. The following year he arrived as an ICORN guest writer to Stavanger.

The Kurdish poet and journalist from Iran has contributed to several Kurdish and Persian journals of literature, politics, arts and culture. Khonsyawashan became a member of the Mariwan Committee on Literature in 1991. Three years later he published the only journal using the Kurdish language in Iran at that time.

Before having to flee to Iraq due to persecution based on his cultural and political activities, he took part in the founding, running, and editing of several cultural journals. From 2003 until 2007, he lived in Turkey, where he was a founding member of the Writers Union of Eastern Kurdistan, of which he is still a board member.

He was initially invited as an ICORN Guest Writer by Oslo City of Refuge, but was not granted permission to leave Turkey. He was eventually invited to Bergen City of Refuge in 2007. Khonsyawashan has also written a novel, he is working on translating his poems into Norwegian, and he is actively working to help other persecuted writers.

Short story writer, novelist, teacher and journal editor Musa Mutaev was born in Kyrgyztan, but grew up in Chechnya. He is a former ICORN Guest Writer in Trondheim City of Refuge.

Basim Mardan is a writer and playwright from Iraq. He was a librarian in Mosul before taking a job as a translator for the US Army. He is a former ICORN Guest Writer of Skien City of Refuge, where he still lives with his family.

Mansour Koushan comes from Iran where he worked as a theater producer and director, television screenwriter and novelist. He is a former ICORN Guest Writer of Stavanger City if Refuge and edits a literary journal.