The Terrain of No Words - An Elegy for Refugees: A Reading of Bejan Matur’s Sea of Fate | Iowa City Book Festival 2019

The world renowned Turkish poet Bejan Matur wrote her Sea of Fate in 2009, in the span of a three-week long “near-trance,” an almost mystical outpouring of words and lines. The poem cycle is a meditation on the fateful passage across the Mediterranean Sea that untold number of refugees have braved for centuries, in search of sanctuary. Bejan Matur’s work has only gained greater valence and urgency since the Syrian refugee odyssey. Join us for a multi-media dramatic reading of Sea of Fate, newly translated into English by Aron Aji and Leigh Marshall. The performance will also feature Turkish painter Mehmet Gunyeli’s artwork inspired by Matur’s poem.

Books and Writing Iowa City Book Festival