Hoda Barakat
Location
Category
Price
Language
How do you best convey exile, homesickness and longing? Through letters, in essence a symbol of not being where you want to be, a symbol of separation and loss. That is precisely why Lebanese author Hoda Barakat chose the letter as the aptest form for her gripping novel The Night Mail.
‘Social distancing’ is what Corona experts advise, ‘social nearness’ is what we aim for with our literary events. Because we are unable to provide that now, but even more so because we don’t want to put others at risk, we are cancelling our activities until further notice. For each of these activities we will try to organise them at a later date.
If you are a ticket holder you will be contacted and reimbursed. We will also give you priority to reserve tickets when we have fixed a later date.
For conversations with writers, new ideas and stories, you are welcome to visit our online magazine.
The Night Mail
‘“I chose [the novel’s] final form when scenes of migrants fleeing their countries had penetrated my imagination. Those people who have lost their homes and are scattered over the earth ...’ In The Night Mail, Hoda Barakat allows us to hear the voices of five different migrants through the letters they write somewhere between the Arabic world and Europe. The events recollected in the letters are set in indeterminate places in the Arab world, a world overrun by wars and crises. The letters have neither a destination address nor a sender, and will never reach the people they were intended for.
A committed writer of war trauma
Barakat has five novels and two plays under her belt as well as short stories, memoirs and journalistic work, and in virtually all her work, the writer deals with the violence, trauma and marginalization that war causes.
The Night Mail also shows her commitment: ‘At this time, we are seeing a regression in the humanitarian dimension of those civilisations, as countries protect themselves by closing their doors. … I hope that this novel, somehow or other, will have given voice to brittle lives, which are judged by others without understanding them or investigating what brought them to their current state.’
Hoda Barakat was born in Lebanon in 1952. After studying French literature, she worked as a translator, teacher and journalist before moving to Paris towards the end of the Lebanese Civil War in the late 1980s.
Her work has been translated into, among others, English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Turkish, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2015. In 2019 The Night Mail won the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction – the ‘Arabic Booker’, as it were. In 2017 she was in residence at Passa Porta.
Coming soon at
Am I Evil?
An intimate lecture about the controversial figure of trader and collector of African art Jeanne Walschot with the Belgian-Italian curator duo, Simone Basani and Alice Ciresola.
NLDead Ladies Show #11 in Antwerpen
In de elfde editie van ons café chantant brengt Gaea Schoeters een programma met o.a. Rachida Lamrabet, Anneleen Van Offel en Steven Van Ammel. Onderbelichte vrouwelijke kunstenaars en wetenschappers krijgen het spotlicht, met muzikale intermezzo’s door pianiste Lies Colman en zangeres Lieselot De Wilde.
Meet the author: Sheena Patel
I’m A Fan, British writer and director Sheena Patel’s debut novel about obsession, social media and power relations, put her on the map as one of the most exciting new voices in British literature. She will be interviewed by Sudanese-Australian writer Yassmin Abdel-Magied, who will be working on her new novel as writer in residence at Passa Porta in Brussels.