Reading with Jörn Hall, the 2023 Annalise Wagner Prize winner

Jörn van Hall is a writer, poet and translator living in Neustrelitz and Berlin. His prose debut (Quintus-Verlag, 2022) tells the story of Helene, an opera singer suffering from dementia, and Mourad, a refugee from his native Iran.
He achieves this "with great linguistic power and stylistic confidence and, above all, without clichés", emphasized the jury of the Annalise Wagner Prize. Sensitively and subtly, this story encourages reflection on complex historical themes such as "flight, expulsion, entanglement, division, revolution, emigration, homophobia, family authorities, the threat of execution". Kerstin Hensel emphasized in her laudatory speech: "In just a few pages, we learn a lot that is not unknown, but that we have SO not heard before."
Susanne Schulz from the Board of Trustees of the Annalise Wagner Foundation will moderate the reading. Farid Aghaei and Shervin Ghahremani will provide musical accompaniment throughout the evening.