AKADEMIE FORUM: ABDALRAHMAN ALQALAQ

Abdalrahman Alqalaq's poems and prose texts sometimes have a bitter tone; they deal with war, flight, and life in exile, but also do not want to forget the tender moments. They trace the old homeland, the distance that has grown between the self and it, grapple with the new one, and remember friends.

Life in exile appears as life in an intermediate realm, which language explores in resonant images, sometimes more subtle, sometimes more violent, but always one thing: intense.



Absences Take Shape
My apartment does only one thing: it reminds me of things
that aren't there
The walls, the stairs
the window handles, doorknobs, furniture edges
the empty sofa
broken shadows on a table with two chairs
Everything points to something missing
and wants to drive me mad
At some point, the absence takes shape
and you speak to it and bet:
Which of us is more present in this apartment?


Abdalrahman Alqalaq, born in 1997 in Alyarmouk, a refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, is a Palestinian writer, poet, and performer. He is currently studying cultural studies and aesthetic practice with a focus on theater and literature, as well as cultural policy in international comparison, at the University of Hildesheim and the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco. In 2022, his first volume of poetry, twenty-four in Arabic, was published in Cairo. Some of his texts have been published in Weiter Schreiben magazine.


With a musical contribution by Shai Lustig, student at the Barenboim-Said Academy


(In German and Arabic)