Mona Yahia

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Mona Yahia (* 1954 in Baghdad , Iraq ) is an artist and writer; she publishes novels, short stories, and takes part in art exhibitions and promotions.

Live and act

Mona Yahia comes from a Jewish-Arab family. She grew up in Baghdad and fled with her parents and brother in 1970 from the effects of the Iraqi military regime via Iran to Israel , where the family immigrated in 1971 . From 1972 to 1974 she did her military service there. She then studied psychology and French at Tel Aviv University , which she completed in 1977 with a BA . After a year-long stay in Paris , she began studying clinical psychology in Tel Aviv with an MA in 1980. She then worked as a psychologist in Tel Aviv. In 1985 she moved to the Federal Republic of Germany and studied fine arts at the Art Academy in Kassel with Harry Kramer . With artistic objects (such as soap, beer mats, cinnamon stars, postcards) and actions, Yahia has since commented a. a. the culture of remembrance in German society with a view to the Shoah .

In 2000 Mona Yahia published the novel “When the Gray Beetles Took over Baghdad” in London , which describes the life of the cultured Jewish-Arab bourgeoisie in Baghdad in the 1960s from the perspective of a teenager and has autobiographical features. The novel was published in German translation in 2002 under the title "A dark stream flows through Baghdad". The French ( “Les coccinelles grises” , Paris) and American (New York) editions followed in 2006 and 2007 .

Mona Yahia has lived and worked in Cologne since 1997.

Honors

In 2001 Mona Yahia was awarded the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize for Fiction in London . In 2003 she received the Young Readers Jury Prize in Vienna .

Scholarships

In 2006, 2007 and 2014 Mona Yahia received project grants from the Kunststiftung NRW, the Stiftung Rückgabe (Berlin) and the SK Kulturstiftung Köln. In 2013 she received a residency grant for Istanbul as part of the "Atelier Galata" grant program of the City of Cologne; This was followed by another stay in Istanbul in 2017, funded by the Kunststiftung NRW.

Publications (selection)

  • Domino Effect. In: London Magazine, vol. 33 no. 1 & 2, London 1993
  • METRO-BOULOT-DODO . In: Heiner Schepers (Ed.): One hour for Harry Kramer . Buxus Verlag, Lingen 1997, ISBN 3-933038-00-6 .
  • When the Gray Beetles Took over Baghdad . Peter Halban Publishers, London 2000 (German: A dark stream flows through Baghdad . Translation: Susanne Aeckerle. Eichborn Verlag , Frankfurt / M. 2002 ISBN 3-8218-0913-2 ; dtv Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3423207157 ) .
  • A Borrowed Tongue (essay). In: Fikrun wa Fann / Art and Thought No. 91, 2009.
  • The day Sadat flew to Jerusalem. In: Kerstin Schimmel (Ed.): Also your heart ..., Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2011, ISBN 978-3-89812-817-9 .
  • '' Love Traps ''. Kindle Edition, 2013 (German: `` Liebesfallen ''. Translation: Kirsten E. Lehmann. Kindle Edition, 2013; no longer available)
  • The Historical Khans of Istanbul - The historical Hane of Istanbul. A documentary photo project (bilingual; German translation by Kirsten E. Lehmann), 2015 ISBN 978-3-00-051806-5 .
  • SNAPSHOTS - Istanbul behind closed doors. (trilingual edition German-Turkish-English), Binooki Verlag, 2019 ISBN 978-3-943562-675 .
  • Istanbul, foreign-familiar - in: die horen - magazine for literature, art and criticism, volume 278: In fleeting contact - Istanbul. Wallstein Verlag Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-8353-3695-7

Participation in exhibitions (selection)

  • People like you and me - four female artists for the documentary exhibition War of Extermination - Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941–1944. Cologne City Museum, 1999 (catalog published by Korridor Verlag, ISBN 3-9804354-6-6 ).
  • Against the Grain - Working with Photography from the Heinrich Mies Collection. Museum Ludwig Cologne (catalog published by Locher Verlag 2000, ISBN 3-930054-38-8 ).
  • Ambivalences - Contemporary Jewish Artists in Germany. Frauenmuseum Bonn & Galerie Münsterland, 2002 (Catalog ISBN 3-928239-66-X ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pure horror . In: TAZ . April 22, 1987, p. 20 .
  2. ↑ Against the grain . In: Working with photography from the Heinrich Mies collection. Locher, Cologne 2000, p. 50 .
  3. ↑ One line for every Nazi victim. Campaign for the Reichskristallnacht in the Presidium. Kölner Stadtanzeiger, November 5, 1988, p. 16 (During the public action at the Cologne police headquarters, the author and Michael Lawton read the names of the Jews deported from Cologne on the night of November 3rd to 4th, 1988.).
  4. ↑ The last Jews of Baghdad . FAZ January 17, 2003; No. 14, page 32
  5. ↑ Heidy Margrit Müller, Anat Feinberg and Kamal Odischo Kolo (eds.): The end of the Babylonian exile. A turning point in cultural history in the literature of the last Iraqi-Jewish authors. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-89500-828-3 , hatred of the Arabic language and praise of multilingualism in Mona Yahia's "When the Gray Beetles Took over Baghdad" ("A dark stream flows through Baghdad"), p. 174-178 et al. a .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Yahia, Mona
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iraqi artist and writer (poem, story, novel)
DATE OF BIRTH 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Baghdad , Iraq