What we write to Each Other

What We Write to Each Other- Beyond the Letter Exchange. Batool Haidari & Marica Bodrožić

Conversation & Reading

In partnership with Untold Narratives (London) and Weiter Schreiben (Berlin), the foundation KfW Stiftung supports women writers in Afghanistan and the diaspora through the Untold Literatures – Paranda Network programme. For the last five years, Letter Exchanges have paired Afghan women writers with German-language writers in an ongoing conversation that crosses languages, borders and literary traditions. This series of events holds space for some of the writers who have participated in the exchanges, strengthening intercultural dialogue and platforming marginalised perspectives.

What We Write to Each Other - Beyond the Letter Exchange. Batool Haidari & Marica Bodrožić 

Two women, one correspondence: As part of the project Untold Narratives. Weiter Schreiben Correspondence with Afghan Authors, Batool Haidari from the Paranda Network and the German writer Marica Bodrožić engaged in an intensive letter exchange. Across a distance of 5,000 kilometres, they wrote letters to one another before, during and after the Taliban’s takeover – personal, poetic, political.

Now they are meeting for the first time to read from their letters, discuss writing, their exchange and literature’s ability to open up spaces that would otherwise remain closed.A literary event about encounters and retelling unheard stories.

• Thursday, 18 June, 2026, Start: 19:00, Admission from 18:30
• KfW Bankengruppe Berlin, Historischer Kassensaal, Behrensstraße 33, Berlin
• Moderated by Vivian Perkovic, a journalist, editor and presenter at Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

The event will be held in German. Contributions in Dari will be translated simultaneously.

Batool Haitari is a clinical psychologist, writer, and activist who has worked in Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan. She was teaching psychology at Kabul University before she fled Afghanistan with her family in August 2021. Her work has been published in Dari, German, and English in My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women (MacLehose Press, February 2022), My Dear Kabul: A year in the life of an Afghan women’s writing group (Coronet, August 2024), A Tongueless Speaker: A collection of short stories by Afghan women writers (Nogaam, 2025) and has been published with Words Without Borders. She now lives in the UK with her three children and husband. Her debut book Asylum Hotel is forthcoming with Profile Books in 2027.

Marica Bodrožić born in 1973 in the hinterland of Split in Dalmatia, she moved to Hesse in 1983 and now lives in Berlin and Brandenburg. She writes poetry, novels, short stories, and essays. Since her debut, *Tito ist tot* (2002), she has published numerous books exploring memory, philosophy, and mysticism. Her most recent works are Das Herzflorett and Die Rebellion der Liebenden (Penguin Random House, 2024). She has received numerous awards and grants for her work.

Vivian Perkovic, born in Winterberg in 1978, is a journalist and presenter with many years of experience in television and radio. She works for, among others, the 3sat programme Kulturzeit and Deutschlandfunk Kultur. She has received numerous awards for her work, most recently the German Television Award in the “Best News Programme” category for Kulturzeit.

Jutta Himmelreich works as a translator, interpreter and lecturer in German, English, French and Farsi/Dari. She sees herself as a diplomat in the service of world literature and focuses her work on promoting and disseminating literature from the Global South.

The projekt Untold Narratives – Weiter Schreiben. Correspondence with Afghan Authors is a cooperation between the foundation KfW Stiftung, Untold Narratives (London) and Weiter Schreiben (Berlin).

SAVE THE DATE: The second event with Tamanna Easar and Yael Inokai is scheduled for 6 October 2026 in Frankfurt am Main.

Image: Fatemeh Hassani