| This event centres on the literary memory of Baghdad, as well as referencing the Iran-Iraq War and the Second Gulf War. In Hussain Al-Mozany’s novel "Mansur oder Der Duft des Abendlandes" (Mansur or the Scent of the Occident, 2002) the hero deserts in the war between Iran and Iraq and flees to Baghdad. There he hits upon the absurd idea of passing himself off as the descendent of a German crusader and going to Germany to demand his right to live there and be accepted into society. Betool Khedairi’s novel "A Sky So Close" (1999) tells of a girl who grows up in Iraq as the daughter of an Iraqi father and a British mother. Faced with the conflicts that arise from divergent cultural socializations, the girl must seek her position between the two worlds of her parents. Betool Khedairi, born in 1965 in Baghdad as the daughter of an Iraqi father and a Scottish mother, studied French literature. She now lives in Amman (Jordan). Hussain Al-Mozany, born in 1954 in Amarah/Iraq, has lived in Germany since 1980. Publications in Arabic were followed by the German novels "Der Marschländer" (The Marschländer, 1999) and "Mansur oder Der Duft des Abendlandes" (Mansur or the Scent of the Occident, 2002), for which he was awarded the Chamisso Prize. Moderator: Peter Wien (Berlin)
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