Tabletalk Europe is a cross-media publishing format founded in Berlin by culture scholar Asal Dardan, publisher Christiane Frohmann and journalist Michaela Maria Müller as a part of Orbanism Publishing. The underlying idea of the project is, that nothing strengthens and enhances empathy, humanity and a sense of community more than encounters between people.

Tabletalk Europe offers a platform for people who live in Europe and have experienced migration or flight. Coming together to share their ideas and stories, they can learn from each other and grow together over a good dinner and in a pleasant atmosphere. By now, the format has grown into a lively network, which is spreading beyond Germany’s borders.

Tabletalk Scandinavia took place by invitation of the Goethe Institute Sweden on the 27th and the 28th of October in Malmö and Copenhagen.

The conversations were recorded and this podcast is an attempt to convey something of the magic the evenings held, to preserve our impressions, insights and experiences but most of all to make the stories and voices of our guests heard.

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OUR GUESTS

Jude Dibia

PHOTO OF JUDE DIBIA, (C) BY FREDERIK ELG

Jude Dibia is a novelist, social activist and an ICORN resident fellow living in Malmö, Sweden. Before moving to Sweden, Jude’s writings and cultural work touched on the sensitive issue of LGBTQ+ rights in his home country as well as the representation of LGBTQ+ individuals within the creative space. In Malmö, Jude has worked and collaborated with the Malmö Culture Department on various projects with a focus on migration, cities providing safe havens to writers/artists and an on-going dialogue series between migrant artists and their new communities.

Khaled Barakeh

PHOTO, (C) COURTESY OF KHALED BARAKEH

Born in 1976 in Damascus Suburb, and currently based in Berlin, Khaled Barakeh graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, Syria in 2005, completed his MFA at Funen Art Academy in Odense, Denmark in 2010 and finished his Meisterschueler at the Städelschule Art Academy in Frankfurt a.M, Germany in 2013. During his stay in Europe Barakeh, originally trained as a painter, has developed a stronger concentration on conceptual art practices. Today he works in a variety of media, focusing on the current and pertinent issues, often revolving around politics and power structures in context of identity, culture and history. He has exhibited at the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart; Shanghai Biennale; Salt Istanbul; Kunsthalle Brandts, Ovegarden Denmark; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Artspace New Zealand and many other institutions and venues around the world. Recently Barakeh started a new initiative called Syria Cultural Index, dedicated to mapping and connecting the Syrian artistic community around the globe and showcasing their work to wider audience.

Lesley-Ann Brown

PHOTO, (C) COURTESY OF LESLEY-ANN BROWN

Lesley-Ann Brown is a Brooklyn-born writer, educator and activist who currently lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her parents hail from Trinidad and Tobago. She studied writing and literature at the New School for Social Research and is currently a contributor for NBCBLK. Her book, Decolonial Daughter: Letters from a Black woman to her European Son will be published in May, 2018 in both the States and UK by Repeater Books. She also created the critically-acclaimed blackgirlonmars blog. is the founder of Bandit Queen press and co-founder of Say It Loud! Poetry Collective of Black and women of color poets in Copenhagen.
She was also a co-organizer of the Women’s March Copenhagen, which drew over 5000 demonstrators.

Mareen Bruns

PHOTO OF MAREEN BRUNS, (C) BY DIRK SKIBA

Mareen Bruns, born 1989 in Bremen, Germany has a Master’s degree in German contemporary literature from the University of Gothenburg. She is a lyric poet and translator for Swedish literature. 2015 she was chosen to take part in the lyric workshop of the Bavarian Academy of Writing, 2017/18 she is taking part in the the novel workshop. In 2017 she spent one month as a writer-in-residence in Soltau and won the Wiener Werkstattpreis. Bruns is living in Berlin and has published lyric poetry and prose in literature magazines and anthologies.

Naeimeh Doostdar

(C) COURTESY OF NAEIMEH DOOSTDAR

Naeimeh Doostdar is a journalist, author and human rights activist from Iran. She was born in 1977 in Tehran and has a Master’s degree in Persian Language and Literature. As a journalist she has worked for magazines, newspapers and online media since 1997, focusing on social issues, politics and women’s rights. She has been awarded national prizes for her journalism. In the aftermath of the 2009 protests in Iran, Naeimeh’s journalistic writing got her into trouble with the Iranian authorities. She was detained at the notorious Evin prison, where many Iranian political dissidents are held and ultimately decided to leave the country together with her husband and daughter. Since she arrived in Sweden in 2012, she has been active in debates on the human rights situation in Iran and has published three poetry collections (Smockadoll Förlag) translated into Swedish. Her latest poetry collection is titled Embracing My Lump and was published in June 2016. She was Malmö City of Refuge’s guest writer from 2012 to 2014.

Ahmed Fahmy

Ahmed Fahmy is a student at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University.

Reza Haji Hosseini

PHOTO, (C) COURTESY OF REZA HAJI HOSSEINI

Reza was born in 19 80 in Tehran and works as a journalist and author in the fields of theater and social policy. He has written plays, academic texts and reviews and has participated in a number of theater festivals in Tehran. His university studies in theater were interrupted at master’s level because he tried to graduate on the relationship between theater and politics. Since then he has been working as a freelance journalist, publishing in several major newspapers in Iran. He has worked on the cultural radio channel „Farhang“ as an editor and award-winning programme producer. Since he left Iran in 2011, he has worked for exile medias and, to a greater extent, written about human rights. He has been living in Malmö since 2012.

Nannina Matz

PHOTO, (C) COURTESY OF NANNINA MATZ

Nannina Matz was born in Berlin in 1983 and currently lives in Munich. She studied at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. Her account of the refugee crisis at the border between Greece and Macedonia in 2016 In Idomeni was published in May of the same year by Hanser Verlag.

Jila Mossaed

PHOTO OF JILA MOSSAED, (C) BY EVA BERGSTRÖM

Jila Mossaed was born in Tehran in 1948 and has been living in Swedish exile since 1986. She has published several collections of poems both in Persian and Swedish, which have been translated into many languages. Even though her work is banned in her native country, her poems are well known in Iran, where she is regarded as one of the most important poets of the 20th Century. She has been awarded the prestigious Gustav-Fröding-Priset, the Nordstedt’s author scholarship and a scholarship by the Swedish Academy. Her latest collection of poems will be released in autumn 2017.

Rahel Weldeab Sebhatu

PHOTO, (C) COURTESY OF RAHEL WELDEAB SEBHATU

Rahel was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. At the age of two she migrated to the United States together with her mother and brother, where she lived for fourteen years before moving to Eritrea, her family’s country of origin. For the past four years Rahel has been studying and working in Sweden, where she is a graduate student in Global Studies at the Graduate School of Lund University. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration and Political Science at the University of Asmara, Eritrea. Rahel is a project assistant for the project “Gender-Just Peace and Transitional Justice”, as well as the editorial assistant for the academic journal “Cooperation and Conflict”.

Spyros Sofos

(C) COURTESY OF SPYROS SOFOS

Spyros grew up in Anthens and is Research Coordinator at the CMES, Lund University where he is also a researcher and teaching in the MA in Middle Eastern Studies. He is also coordinator of a Raoul Wallenberg Institute strand of an Inclusive and Open Societies project on Turkey. He has previously been a Senior Research Fellow in International Politics at the Helen Bamber Centre for the Study of Rights, Conflict and Mass Violence of Kingston University, a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Portsmouth University.

Many thanks to Eva Bergström, Tanja von Dahlern and Christiane Lahusen from the Goethe Institute Sweden, Rickard Lagervall from Lund University and all the participants.

Tabletalk Scandinavia Podcast