Between cultures and grandmother tongues

Salman was looking forward to his family’s first holiday to a sunny destination. But only a few days before departure everything changes, and instead the family has to travel to the parents’ homeland, Baluchistan. In her debut book, Den riktiga solen (The Real Sun), Peimaneh Mollazehi depicts a boy’s inner and outer journey when he encounters a culture so familiar to his parents, but so foreign to himself. In Minoo Sham’s debut Maryam och mormorsmålet (Maryam and the Grandmother Tongue), we follow Maryam’s path forward in Sweden. Grandmother is still in Iran – and why should Maryam speak a language that Grandmother can’t? The follow-up book, Maryam och hjärtegästerna (Maryam and the Loving Guests) continues the same theme, about longing for relatives and family far away, a feeling many children can recognise in themselves. The authors meet in a conversation about feeling at home, being between two cultures and mother tongues. Moderator: Yankho Kamwendo, actor.

 

Speakers: Peimaneh MollazehiMinoo Shams.
Moderator: Yankho Kamwendo.

 

Organised in collaboration with the authors’ Swedish publishers: Bonnier Carlsen and Lilla Piratförlaget.