Frankfurt – City of Refuge
An author in exile
Frankfurt Book Fair
International Centre
Peter Ripken
T +49 (0) 69 2102 289
M +49 (0) 160 710 59 75
ripken@book-fair.com
Frankfurt – City of Refuge
Writers suffer persecution in many countries around the world – from bans on publication and imprisonment to threats on life and limb. It is for them that the program of cities of refuge was started in the mid-90ties, by the then International Parliament of Writers under its President of the time Salman Rushdie. The city of Frankfurt joined the program in 1997, with the support of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Since August 2007, the Cuban writer Carlos Aguilera is living in Frankfurt as guest author of Frankfurt as city of refuge. First guest author was the Iranian intellectual and author Faraj Sarkuhi who at the time when Frankfurt decided to accommodate him was still in prison in Teheran. This decision was largely influenced by the Frankfurt Book Fair directorate. Sarkuhi who received a scholarship under the program of Frankfurt city of refuge from 1998 to 2000 continues to live in Frankfurt, under the program „Writers in Exile“ which was started by PEN Germany. From January 2001 to summer 2002 the Belarus writer Vasil Bykov lived in Frankfurt. From 2004 to 2006, the writer Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador) was living in Frankfurt. During this time he published two novels and was travelling also to promote his new books and the translations of his novels into French and German. Since Horacio Castellanos Moya cannot return to his native country because there are still death threats because of his writings, he has in the meantime moved to Pittsburgh, USA.
The program „Cities of refuge“ was started in the mid-nineties because many authors cooperating in the International Parliament of Writers felt that the time of resolutions and „quiet diplomacy“ for authors in distress was over. The city of Frankfurt soon joined the network of cities which started to host persecuted authors and gave them a place to work without political interference and censorship for at least one year. Having been part of the network under the umbrella of the International Parliament of Writers, it was logical that the city of Frankfurt joined the new network ICORN International Cities of Refuge Network when the International Parliament of Writers was dissolved and its network of cities began to disintegrate. ICORN which is closely cooperating with International PEN Writers in Prison Committee was formally inaugurated in June 2006 in Stavanger, Norway, and the Frankfurt representative Peter Ripken has been involved from its inception. The city of Frankfurt also welcomes that ICORN is expanding its field of contacts beyond Europe by closely cooperating with cities in Mexico and North America where more and more cities have declared to host writers in distress, cities like Las Vegas, Pittsburgh and Cornell University, Ithaca
In 1997, the city council of Frankfurt followed the suggestion by the then city councillor for multi-cultural affairs Daniel Cohn-Bendit (now a Member of the European Parliament) to join the network of cities of refuge. The decision was taken bearing in mind the fact that Frankfurt always had been an “open city” with many people coming from foreign countries to live in Frankfurt, and also considering the fact that many German writers and intellectuals had found refuge in other countries during the dark times of the Nazi rule.
In 1998, the Frankfurt Book Fair’s board of directors decided – on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Frankfurt Book Fair – to support the programme “Frankfurt – city of refuge” in order to show its commitment for the right of freedom of expression in concrete terms.
The city’s cultural department and the Frankfurt Book Fair directorate conferred the program’s project management on the Society for the Promotion of African, Asian and Latin American literature (litprom), a non-profit literary agency and information centre which is closely cooperating with the Frankfurt Book Fair. The funds for the scholarship for the guest authors are provided for by the Frankfurt Book Fair, while the city of Frankfurt is in charge of lodging the guest author and providing for health insurance.
The programme “Frankfurt – City of refuge” is running concurrently with the programme “Writer in Exile” which is organized by the German PEN Centre and enjoying funding by the German government.
The Cuban author Carlos A. Aguilera (*1970 in Havanna) has been living in Frankfurt since August 2007. Aguilera who studied literature, had published several books of poetry in Cuba since 1995. He received
the award David de Poesía 1995, which is awarded by the Cuban Writers and Artist Union UNEAC, and later was awarded the Calendario de Poesía. In 1997 he started together with friends the magazine Diáspora(s), which was during its lifespan the premier space critical debate and alternative culture and a platform for intellectuals and writers who were not interested in publishing only in official media and who wanted to open to the world. Because the journal also published authors from outside Cuba who were not liked by the authorities, Aguilera was increasingly harassed. In 2002 the publication of the magazine was officially discontinued by the state cultural administrators, and Aguilera and his friends were effectively banned from publishing in the official media. When the German PEN invited him to come to Germany for a scholarship, he was made to wait for 9 months before he could take up the scholarship in Bonn, Germany, in 2002. After sub-sequent residencies in Graz and Dresden Aguilera was invited to come to Frankfurt and continue his literary work.
He has forged intensive dialogue and exchanges with writers from the former Soviet Bloc. Influenced by the works of Hannah Arendt, Premio Levi and Elias Canetti, Aguilera's writings reflect on life under totalitarianism, not only in Cuba but in a re-created China (home to his maternal ancestors). Aguilera is also part of a growing intellectual public sphere outside of Cuba that has fashioned new critical forms of engagement and diasporic citizenship. Even as artists and writers envision a democratic process for the country, this generation of young Cuban intellectuals consider themselves to be on the left of the political spectrum, and they reject the totalitarian aims of any government, regardless of its ideology.
Under present circumstances, Carlos Aguilera cannot return to Cuba after he joined the protests against the imprisonment of 75 authors and intellectuals in spring 2003. After that the Cuban government effectively banned his re-entry into his country, as reported by amnesty international.
He has published several volumes of poetry, fiction, and essays while still in Cuba including Retrato de A. Hopper y su esposa (Cuba 1996) and Das Kapital (Cuba 1997). In exile Carlos Aguilera has published the collection of essays and poetry Die Chinamaschine (Übers. Udo Kawasser. Steirische Verlagsgesellschaft, Graz 2004) and the novel Teoría del alma china (Mexico 2006; translated into German Theorie der chinesischen Seele tr. Udo Kawasser. Edition Erata, Leipzig 2007) – also translated into other languages such as French, English and Croatian. He is also the editor of several anthologies of Cuban poetry and prose. In addition, his texts and articles have appeared in Letras libres, Revista de Occidente, Diario de Poesía, Crítica, Manuskripte, Boundary 2, Tsé tsé, Mandorla, Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, La Habana Elegante, Cubista, Babylon, Quorum, etc., and in newspapers such as Frankfurter Rundschau, El País, and Die Presse. He regularly writes reviews for The Miami Herald, in Florida.
In Frankfurt Carlos Aguilera is continuing his widespread literary activities, is working on a new novel and has had quite a number of public readings and discussions.
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