Ronya Othmann - Return to Syria

Description

The event is held in cooperation with AMICA e. V. The Freiburg women's rights organization supports women and girls in war and crisis regions, currently in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Egypt. "I've been on my phone again for a few days. I wake up, eat, work distracted, read the news. I call my father. My father gets up in the morning, reads the news, goes to work, sits in front of the TV. Assad is gone. The regime has fallen. The regime from which my father — a stateless Yazidi Kurd — fled Syria in 1980. I know the country from visits to my grandparents in my childhood. A country where portraits of the dictator and his father hung at every corner, a country ruled by a family like a mafia clan for 54 years." A few weeks after the fall of Assad, Ronya Othmann traveled to Syria with her father: tracing the recent events through a country that seems to have become foreign to itself. And everywhere she spoke with people, regardless of their affiliation — people who want to believe in a future again, caught between fear and hope. The author discusses her book, her impressions from Syria, and her view of the current situation since the fall of Assad with gender researcher and board member of the Freiburg women's rights organization AMICA e. V., Dr. Andrea Zimmermann. *Ronya Othmann, born in Munich in 1993 to a German mother and a Kurdish-Êzîdî father, writes poetry, prose, and essays and works as a journalist.
She has received numerous awards for her writing, including the Open Mike poetry prize, the MDR literature prize, and the Caroline Schlegel promotion prize for essays.
For her debut novel "Die Sommer," she received the Mara Cassens Prize in 2020, and for her poetry collection "die verbrechen" (2021), the Orphil debut prize, the Horst Bienek promotion prize, and the Horst Bingel Prize in 2022. Her second novel, "Vierundsiebzig," was nominated for the German Book Prize and awarded the Düsseldorf Literature Prize, the SWR Best List Prize 2024, and the Erich Loest Prize 2025.* https://www. amica-ev. org/

Highlights

• Reading by Ronya Othmann
• Discussion about Syria and women's rights
• Cooperation with AMICA e. V.

General Information

The event takes place in the Vorderhaus in Freiburg im Breisgau and addresses the current situation in Syria. Ronya Othmann talks about her impressions from the country and the challenges faced by women and girls.

Location

Habsburgerstrasse 9, 79104 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

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