KW x DAAD – Happy Stories, Mostly

In the organizer's words:

An evening of readings at Café Bravo, bringing together Berlin authors and fellows of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program: Souhaib Ayoub, Maaza Mengiste, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Norman Erikson Pasaribu and other guests.

The focus is on the feeling of happiness that somehow always remains just out of reach - this "almost, but not quite". This in-between space is explored in short texts. The readings run through the evening and are accompanied by short conversations. The evening begins with Indonesian author Norman Erikson Pasaribu, whose short story collection Happy Stories, Mostly, nominated for the International Booker Prize, gives the evening its title. Afterwards, the British author and poet Vanessa Onwuemezi, author of Dark Neighbourhood (2021, Fitzcarraldo Editions), the Lebanese writer, playwright and journalist Souhaib Ayoub, author of Le loup de la famille (2025, Actes Sud), and the Ethiopian-American author Maaza Mengiste, whose novel The Shadow King (2019) was nominated for the Booker Prize, will read. Together, the texts move between belonging and exclusion, closeness and distance - and explore what lies in between.

The event is part of the KW × DAAD series, curated by Liberty Adrien (KW Institute for Contemporary Art) and Mathias Zeiske (DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program).

Price information:

Ticket 5 €, available online.