Events
Past events
The Guilty Feminist at Amplify Festival
Parwana Fayyaz, Afghan poet, scholar, author of Forty Names (Carcanet Press, 2021), co-editor and co-translator of My Dear Kabul (Coronet, 2024), joined The Guilty Feminist live podcast recording at the Amplify Human Rights Festival at the Fireworks Factory, Woolwich, London, on 7 December.
Parwana was talking alongside Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s South Asia Regional Campaigner, and the host Deborah Frances White about the situation faced by women and girls in Afghanistan.
Stories of Afghanistan: Reporting from the front line, Wimbledon BookFest, 19 October 2024
Writer Batool Haidari and translator Parwana Fayyaz joined Elizabeth Briggs from Saqi Books to discuss the making of My Dear Kabul (Coronet, 2024) and War & Peace & War: 20 Years in Afghanistan (Ithaka Press, 2024) with author and former BBC South Asia correspondent, Andrew North.
Write Assamese: Writing, translating and publishing regional languages, Frankfurt, 14 October 2024
Ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair, we joined a panel event to explore writing, translating and publishing with a focus on Assamese and the anthology, A Fistful of Moonlight: New Fiction from Assam (BEE Books India, MacLehose UK, 2023).
The speakers included writer Bikash Sihingia, translator Harsita Hiya, BEE Books editor Riddhi Maitra, moderated by Lucy Hannah, director of Untold Narratives.
Write Assamese was a collaboration between Untold Narratives, British Council, BEE Books in Kolkata and KfW Foundation.
Image: ‘Writing, translating and publishing regional languages’ at Villa 102, Frankfurt 2024 © KfW Stiftung, Photo: Salar Baygan.
International Translation Day: Translating fiction from Afghanistan, Online, 1 October 2024
In conversation with literary translators Parwana Fayyaz (Dari/English), Sabrina Nouri-Moosa (Persian/Dari/French), Abdul Bacet Khurram (Pashto/Dari), and Persian/English editor and publisher Azadeh Parsapour we explored the challenges and best practices for literary translation in countries with little or no publishing infrastructure, with a particular focus on Afghanistan.
Dear diary: From the personal to the collective, Maughan Library, London, 17 September 2024
Hand writing history: 200 years of personal diaries, an exhibition at The Maughan Library, King’s College London, showed highlights from the Dylan Jonas Stone Collection, plus diaries from King’s own special collections and archives.
We explored the impact and future of personal diaries with Dylan Jonas Stone, and writers from My Dear Kabul (Coronet, 2024), in a panel discussion moderated by Lynne O’Donnell, journalist and author.
The story of an Afghan women’s writing group, The British Library, London, 16 September 2024
To mark the launch of My Dear Kabul (Coronet, 2024), some of the Afghan writers and translators joined us at the British Library in London for readings and a discussion about the process and importance of the book, moderated by the BBC’s International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet.
The Afghanistan Society, London, 25 January 2024
The Afghanistan Society held an event with Afghan food, music, and a talk with writer Batool Haidari, poet and translator Parwana Fayyaz, and Untold Narratives’ director Lucy Hannah to discuss Rising After the Fall, Afghan Women Share Their Stories (Scholastic, 2023) and My Dear Kabul (Coronet, 2024). Filmmaker Alexander Bodin Saphir also spoke about his work developing an animation around My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022).
Rising After the Fall & A Fistful of Moonlight, Stanfords, London, 14 November 2023
To mark the publication of Rising After the Fall, Afghan Women Share Their Stories (Scholastic, 2023) and A Fistful of Moonlight: New Fiction from Assam (MacLehose, 2023), we invited friends and supporters to join the Untold Narratives team and Afghan writer Batool Haidari at Stanfords in Covent Garden.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, Goethe Institut im Exil, Berlin, 2 July 2023
The Goethe-Institut in Exile dedicated the second half of 2023 to Afghanistan’s cultural scene and to giving Afghan cultural workers a stage.
Among many other events between 29th June and 2 July 2023, two of Untold Narratives’ Write Afghanistan writers, Naeema and Marie Bamyani, presented their perspectives. They also read from the anthology My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women (MacLehose Press, 2022) and discussed current issues and challenges with the audience.
This event was developed as part of Untold – Weiter Schreiben. Correspondence with Afghan Authors, a collaboration between Untold Narratives, KfW Stiftung and Weiter Schreiben.
Afghanistan's unheard voices: Stories of resilience, Bradford Literature Festival, Saturday 1 July 2023
Award-winning journalist and author Christina Lamb, campaigner Rabia Nasimi, and poet and translator Parwana Fayyaz discussed the critical situation facing the women of Afghanistan and how they are finding ways to make their voices heard.
German Cultural Sponsorship Prize, Deutschen Kulturförderpreis 22-23, 1 June 2023
Untold Narratives’ partner, KfW Stiftung, was awarded the Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft – the German Cultural Sponsorship Prize 2022/2023 for Untold’s work in collaboration with Weiter Schreiben based in Berlin.
The price and its ceremony, held on 1 June, was announced in the German press and on national television (watch below, 27:00).
Responsibilities in artistic freedoms, 9th World Summit on Arts and Culture - IFACCA, Sweden, 2 May 2023
Lucy Hannah, Untold Narratives’ director and Masoma, contributor to My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022), took part in the panel at the 9th World Summit on Arts and Culture in Stockholm, Sweden. The overarching theme of the summit was Safeguarding Artistic Freedom.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, Stroud Book Festival, 5 November 2022
To discuss My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022) and the two years of collaboration with women in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Zarghuna Kargar, one of the antohology translators, contributor Marie Bamyani, and Lucy Hannah, director of Untold Narratives, joined chair Caroline Sanderson at Stroud Book Festival.
New voices of Afghan women writers, Villa 102, Frankfurt, Monday 17 October 2022
Writers Batool Haidari, Naeema, and Marie Bamyani, and Untold Narratives’ director Lucy Hannah, joined Annika Reich, artistic director of Weiter Schreiben, and KfW Stiftung for a live event in Frankfurt celebrating the work of Afghan writers and the two-year long collaboration between Untold Narratives and Weiter Screiben supported by KfW Stiftung.
The event took place alternately in English and German with simultaneous translation into Dari.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, Birmingham Literature Festival, 8 October 2022
Untold Narratives’ director Lucy Hannah and poet and translator Parwana Fayyaz were on stage to talk about My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022) and the women who wrote them, with video contributions from the women themselves, some of whom are still in Afghanistan.
Gothenburg BookFair, Sweden, 25 September 2022
The director of Untold Narratives Lucy Hannah and some of Afghanistan’s leading female poets and journalists, including Masoma, contributor to My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022) and Nilofar Langar, an Afghan poet and journalist, joined Kholod Saghir, Editor-in-chief of PEN/Opp, at Gothenburg BookFair to discuss Afghan culture and art.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, The Llangwm Literary Festival, 13 August 2022
Writing coach Philippa Davies spoke to Untold Narratives about the creation of the anthology My Pen Is The Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022), an anthology of short stories by Afghan women writers translated from Dari and Pashto.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, The Felixstowe Festival, 25-26 June 2022
A special digital event at Felixstowe Festival to celebrate the publication of My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women (MacLehose Press, 2022).
Contributors of the book joined novelist and Royal Literary Fellow Ruth Dugdall to discuss these vital, unexpected short stories that are both unique and universal.
The original and unexpected stories of Afghan women writers, York Festival of Ideas, Online, 20 June 2022
Director of Untold Narratives, Lucy Hannah, poet and translator, Parwana Fayyaz, and contributing writer, Fatema, joined York Festival of Ideas to discuss the Write Afghanistan project.
The event explored the process of developing the anthology My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022) and the experiences of the Afghan writers, translators and editors who worked on the book.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, Wimbledon Book Fest, 12 June 2022
Untold Narratives’ director Lucy Hannah and translator Zarghuna Kargar were in conversation with journalist Sanam Shantyaei at this live event on Wimbledon Common to discuss the Write Afghanistan project and the creation of the anthology My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women (MacLehose Press, 2022).
They were joined by two of the contributing Afghan writers, who were live-streamed in from Germany and Afghanistan, to discuss their love for writing and the inspiration behind their stories.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, Hay Festival, 28 May 2022
This special event, in partnership with Hay Festival, celebrated the launch of My Pen Is The Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women (MacLehose Press, 2022).
Contributor Masoma joined translator Zarghuna Kargar and Untold Narratives’ director Lucy Hannah to discuss and perform extracts of these powerful, profound and deeply moving new pieces.
Afghan women writers | My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, Cambridge Literary Festival, 24 April 2022
In April, Parwana Fayyaz, one of the translators of My Pen Is The Wing of a Bird (MacLehose Press, 2022), was welcomed to Cambridge Literary Festival in conversation with Will Forrester, Translation and International Manager at English PEN, and Kübra Gümüşay, author, feminist academic and activist. The event included readings from the anthology as well as a discussion on the importance of hearing marginalised Afghan voices.
My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, ChipLitFest, 23 April 2022
European Parliament liaison office in the UK, Europe House, 10 March 2022
The European Parliament seeks to maintain the Afghan women’s situation high on the EU and international agenda, and this event had at its heart the anthology of short stories by contemporary Afghan women writers – My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, New Fiction by Afghan Women (MacLehose Press, 2022).
Speakers included Samira Rafaela MEP, a Member of the European Parliament on behalf of D66 since 2019; Lucy Hannah, director of Untold Narratives; Zarghuna Kargar, one of the translators of My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird; Nicola Dahrendorf, Chair, a human rights and humanitarian practitioner, focused on protection, peacebuilding and conflict resolution in conflict and post-war contexts.
Launch of My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird, Waterstones Piccadilly, 3 March 2022
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