For many writers who have left their homeland and arrived in an unfamiliar environment, a different culture, an unfamiliar city, writing means searching for freedom, a place to live in a reality that leaves them little creative freedom .

The literature festival "Cities of Arrival - At Home Abroad" offers these authors a forum to present their stories, in which they describe their own view of their new home, their own feelings and experiences.

Dogan Akhanliwas born in Turkey and has lived as a writer in Cologne since 1992. He has written numerous novels and a play. "Madonna's Last Dream" is a novel in which he links German and Turkish history in a wide arc from the Nazi era to almost the present day.

Jabbar Abdullahwas born in Raqqa, Syria and has been living and working in Cologne since 2014 as an archaeologist, curator and writer. In his debut novel "Raqqa am Rhein" he processes his experiences in Syria, life under the authoritarian regime and in the war up to his arrival in Cologne.

Moderation: Miltiadis Oulios

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An event in cooperation with 17_3_17 - Association of Promoters of the Exchange of German and Syrian Culture e.V.