Lesung und Gespräch mit Rasha Khayat

In the organizer's words:

Rasha Khayat reads from her new novel

I AM NOT COMING BACK (Dumont Verlag)

A friendship of life and death - in a world on the brink of collapse Hanna, Zeyna and Cem - a luminous friendship that begins one summer in the late 1980s. They grow up together in a working-class housing estate in the Ruhr area, forming a family of choice in which origin plays no role. Home is where they can be together. But the older the children get, the clearer the differences between them become. On September 11, 2001, their friendship is finally put to the test, until the rifts between Hanna and Zeyna become a rift. Years later, Hanna returns to her old home, to the apartment of her deceased grandparents. The city stands still and Hanna feels lonely. Cem, her rock, is still there, but Zeyna has been gone from her life for years. Hanna sets off in search of Zeyna, of traces of her history, of what came between them back then. In a linguistically gripping yet poetic way, Rasha Khayat tells of the gaps in our lives and how we try to overcome them, of infinite love in an unusual family constellation and a deep friendship in a world that is falling apart at the seams.

"This book is like an outstretched hand. A sad and beautiful protest against everything that divides people instead of uniting them." DANIELA DRÖSCHER