The old stories from the Garden of Eden, the paradise through which the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers flowed, tell us of people who had everything at their disposal. They lived in harmony with the earth, which in turn provided them with its inexhaustible abundance. They were obedient toward their creator. And they were in harmony with the universe. But they lived in a state of not knowing. It was the growing mind, the urge for knowledge, the growing out of blind obedience that led to the expulsion from paradise. The consequence of expulsion is exile.

From 2017 to 2021, I spent time in the once Biblical paradise. I led workshops of literature and theater in the countryside around the Euphrates in Tigris in Iraq. Certainly the conditions I met were rather contrary to paradise, but it was the grounds of a very old culture. When I stood with my translator Emad in Basra, Iraq, in November 2018 in front of the showcases of the not-yet-opened Basra Museum with five-thousand-year-old objects from the Sumerian culture, he said, “A community of people builds something. People cultivate their land. They become prosperous. They live in harmony with each other and with their surroundings. They think other people are just as peaceful as they are. They no longer have weapons. That is a mistake. They forget that they become easy prey for others who are after their hard-earned wealth.”

This old man grew up in a land marked by wars and violence but with a five-thousand-year-old culture in his background. He knew what he was talking about.

The Writers-in-Exile Program of PEN Germany

As a member of PEN Germany, I became a Writers-in-Exile officer in 2021. It is voluntary work. This scholarship program of PEN Germany awards grants to writers who suffer persecution, imprisonment, or expulsion in their countries of origin as a consequence of their writings and the freedom of the word they want to express. There is certainly no need to emphasize the fact that these writers come from countries with authoritarian or autocratic regimes or dictatorships. They leave their homeland with a suitcase, and they may never return. They leave behind relatives without knowing whether they will see them again. They arrive in a foreign world and a foreign culture.