Amani Aboshabana's 'Road to Freedom' Evening

As Amani Aboshabana’s two-year ICORN residency in Lillehammer draws to a close, the local community filled the venue at the Lillehammer Library to learn more about why Amani fled Egypt in the first place. Aboshabana, whose work has now been translated into both Norwegian and English, skilfully intertwined her poetic work with stories of personal experiences, highlight the crucial role literature has had throughout her life.

After living in hiding for years due to her work and LGBTQ+ identity, Amani was welcomed as ICORN resident in Lillehammer in 2020. Despite arriving at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aboshabana has continued her literary work and activist efforts for freedom of expression and LGBTQ+ rights and equality in Egypt, Norway, and around the world.

Reflecting on the literary evening and the ways in which her work has changed since taking up her ICORN residency in Lillehammer, Amani shared that:

‘Writing under threat is not the same as writing when one is free. When I was in Egypt, I had to find a safe way to write and that’s why I used metaphor as a mask to hide under. Still, there was this fear inside me that made me think a million times before I published something on the internet. The punishment for an act of writing is so harsh. I could go to jail, or even get killed. When I came to Norway with the help of ICORN, my way of writing changed a lot, and in a good way. It is clearer and more fearless. I can write freely what I want and when I want…Now my voice can reach millions of people, I can set a flame that could help others resist more and to feel that they are not alone in this world’.

The ‘Road to Freedom’ was part of the initiative ‘Litt.verden’, which constitutes of as a series of events aimed at showcasing the cultural diversity of the city and bringing literature and art from around the world. ‘Litt.verden’ is a cooperation between Lillehammer Library and Lillehammer UNESCO City of Literature, and an example of the important cultural work of the city in the context of Norway.

Below is one of the poems Amani Aboshabana read at ‘The Road to Freedom’ evening:

***

Between a wish and the opposite

Poem by Amani AboShabana

Translated by Amani AboShabana from Arabic into English, edited by Patricia W. Griffioen

‘Do you want to be yourself or someone else’, he asked

I want to fly

Stand on the edge

Pretend my arms are wings

And jump off

I want the labyrinths to disappear

Or to get lost into my weary soul

Store all the happy memories

And burn all the never-ending misery

I want to seek protection from another soul

Who understands what it means to survive,

Who does not hold back any word,

Who hears its own voice without fear,

And who speaks clearly without stumbling

By weakness or anything similar

I want the body of the earth to be covered with mud

So it surrounds me with its warmth

And let the rupture that scared me, to be cured by it

The same rupture that scared me when I looked at it

I want the seas to forget about drowning people

To endure those tortured by loneliness

And to be kind with me

While I am slowly hitting the bottom

I want the world to stop punishing people,

who are already disappointed

To stay quiet for a minute

So I can forget for a short time

I cling on to my hard-fought freedom

And wish the world to stop being cruel

So I can endure myself

Or get lost in an ecstatic and passionate place

I want the universe to stop building prison cells

To no longer harass tortured people

And to listen to the voices inside its walls

I want the sky to rain over my heart

So I can get the ability to forgive

And to banish the night draining me of my strength

When I unconsciously ate razorblades

I want death to curse itself

So one day, I can get rid of it

And see the roses covered by the fog

‘Do you want life or death’, he asked

I want the hands that let me go

The heart that I lived in once and found peace in

The eye that cured my wounds with its beauty

I want colours that do not fade

Fields that do not dry out

And a flood which washes away my anger

I want unharmed hope

Tunnels that do not know anything about darkness

Lights that are not mixed with bad accidents

And children who never grow old

I want back my insight which I lost because of all misery

Faces that are not illusions

A tone that spreads calmness

And a palm of a hand to gently carry my face, so I calm down

I want the word ¨past¨ to be free from the thorns

To wipe away the blood and to make peace

So, I can breathe

‘Do you want to be yourself or do you want an idiotic forgetfulness’, he asked

I want a memory that is not an open wound

An event without tears

And a language without contradictions

I want the full truth

A deception that can be killed by my own words

And lies that do not understand themselves, so they disappear

I want fathers who do not want to own

Mothers who know the meaning of belonging

And friends who know what lies behind my laugh

I want to see what I refuse to see

What I tore into pieces to keep myself together

And what I emptied out because of the fear of collapsing

I want from me

To show what I hid unconsciously

To move the tongue, rusted of helplessness

To come back to the soul of hope

So my words heal again

And carry what I intended to hide

I want, I want, I want

Life is a balancing act,

which makes miracles come true

Or destroy conflicting desires

Between a wish and the opposite

Great revolutions take place in the soul

I circle around the cracks in my heart

And hope it gets filled with dreams and light

***

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