Rabea Edel & Pierre Jarawan - „Portrait meiner Mutter mit Geistern“ & „Frau im Mond“ // eine Multimedialesung

In the organizer's words:

The Harbour Front Literature Festival is delighted to welcome Pierre Jarawan and Rabea Edel.

Two authors, two novels, two family stories about hope and love, about losses and new beginnings that take us on a search for answers and lead us from Lebanon to Canada, from Bremerhaven to New York. In a joint reading, the resonance spaces of these two different stories are linked together and brought to life with personal photographs and historical material.

About the book "Portrait of my mother with ghosts"

Raisa lives alone with her mother Martha and always has. She has no memories of her father. Her name is the only thing she got from him - better that way, says Martha. But Raisa starts to ask questions. When the boy next door, Mat, disappears, Martha starts to talk. About her grandmother Dina. Of lies that protect and lies that endanger. Of the love of her life and her greatest loss.

In her book, Rabea Edel paints the moving story of her mother's life and the portrait of a post-war generation that grew up in the shadow of violence and silence. She tells of the power of love and of reclaiming one's own history through language. A book like a kaleidoscope that focuses above all on women - and the female ability to constantly reinvent themselves.

Publication date: January 21, 2025

About the author:

Rabea Edel, born in Bremerhaven in 1982, is an author and photographer. After studying in Rome and at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie with Sven Marquardt and Ute Mahler, she now lives on the Moselle and in Berlin.

She was a winner of the Open Mike, a scholarship holder of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, the German Academy Rome/ Casa Baldi and the Academy of Arts. Her debut novel "Das Wasser, in dem wir schlafen" was enthusiastically received by critics and won numerous awards, including the Berlin-Brandenburg Art Prize for Literature at the suggestion of Herta Müller. Her second novel "Ein dunkler Moment" met with an equally enthusiastic response. In 2021, she published the art book "A Second Beating Heart". Her radio play "Ihre Geister Sehen" (Deutschlandfunk Kultur), narrated by Sandra Hüller, was awarded the ARD Radio Play Prize. Her third novel "Portrait of My Mother with Ghosts" was published by C.H.Beck in January 2025.

About the book "Woman in the Moon"

"There is no never for the human spirit."

On August 4, 1966, a group of students - the Lebanese Rocket Society - set off a space rocket to lead Lebanon into a prosperous future. Exactly 54 years later to the day, there is an explosion in Beirut harbor that shakes the entire country. Pierre Jarawan masterfully links these two historical events into a family story that connects continents and goes far beyond the fate of the Middle East. For in Montréal, Canada, twin sisters Lilit and Lina come across traces of their Armenian grandmother Anoush...

Release date: May 04, 2025

About the author:

Pierre Jarawan was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1985 to a Lebanese father and a German mother. He came to Germany at the age of three and grew up in Kirchheim unter Teck. He studied at the Munich University of Television and Film. His novels "Am Ende bleiben die Zedern" (2016) and "Ein Lied für die Vermissten" (2020) have won awards, been translated into numerous languages and are international bestsellers. His third major novel "Woman in the Moon" will be published in April 2025. He lives with his family in Munich.