BabelBad: Poetry & Pizza: Hosheng Ossi & guests

BabelFestival is a free summer festival,  aan de BabelBühne, a green oasis in the fringes of the city, with a bamboo stage, grandstand and sun loungers around a well.

Under the motto Poetry & Pizza: Every two weeks on Thursday evening enjoy pizza from the wood-fired clay oven & multilingual poetry happenings. A performance by a foreign-language poet with an original translation into another art discipline (dance, image, music), followed by an Open Poetry Stage with host Maud Vanhauwaert.

Hunger & thirst? 

BabelBar is open from 5 pm!

Program starts at 8 pm.

Be sure to order your pizza via the ticket link below!

We open the evening with a tribute to a poet in custodyNedim Turfent.

Nedim Turfentresides in prison in Van. He is a Turkish journalist and poet who was arrested in May 2016 after reporting on the mistreatment of Kurdish construction workers by the Turkish special police forces

Our main guest isHosheng Ossi, a Belgian writer and poet of Kurdish-Syrian descent. On stage the young painter leavesRoche Marr,is inspired by Hosheng's work and creates a visual translation on the spot. Lore Baeten translates his poems live, under the musical accompaniment ofAhmad Ronion the Turkish saz.

Hoshengfled Syria after threats and has been living in Flanders since 2010. He writes in both Arabic and Kurdish and publishes in several Arabic and Kurdish newspapers and on literary websites.

Ossihas since published nine volumes of poetry and three novels. He specializes in the Kurdish and Turkish issues. A selection of his journalistic articles was published in 2011 under the title Fear and Concerns. In 2020 he released both the new poetry collection 'With the eyes of an old crow' and a third novel: 'De Afghaan'.

Roche Marris a young painter from Germany who studies at the Royal Academy in Antwerp. His style is somewhere in the surrealist Pop-Art-Kitsch while he is also inspired by classical artists and academic techniques

Ahmad Ronicomes from a Kurdish family of twelve. At that time, his mother tongue was still a forbidden language. He was not introduced to music until late. That new language changed his life. He discovered the'saz'(a Turkish stringed instrument), hanging as a decoration, on the wall at the neighbors. Music became his companion de route and his way of communicating, so he found the key to stand up against injustice.

Lore Battenis an Arabist, specialized in the Middle East. She obtained a master's degree in Oriental Languages and Cultures at Ghent University and studied at INALCO in Paris (FR), DEAC in Cairo (EG) and IFPO in Damascus (SY), where she lived and worked for 4 years. Her translations include theatrical performances from around the Arab world, poetry and prose.

Nedim Turfentresides in prison in Van. He is a Turkish journalist and poet who was arrested in May 2016 after reporting on the mistreatment of Kurdish construction workers by the Turkish special police forces.

side dish:

Homemade organic and vegetarian spelled pizzas from a wood-fired clay oven at 8 euros between 6.30 pm and 8.30 pm: order your portion via the ticket link here!

.