Sehri Tales in person—with Sister Library this time
An evening of storytelling and writing around "the chimera that is memory"
After a successful month of nano fiction writing during Ramadan this year, Sehri Tales is returning for a live storytelling session as part of the Sister Library's monthly reading session.
The in person event, centering on the theme of 'Memory', will take place on Sunday, May 21 from 6:30 PM at Dhanmondi's Drik Bhavan.
Moderators Sabrina Fatma Ahmad, founder of Sehri Tales, Katerina Don, Creative Director and Co-Founder at CholPori and Curator at HerStory Foundation, and Sarah Anjum Bari, Books & Literary Editor at The Daily Star will introduce and discuss a selection of this year's Sehri Tales stories which dealt with the theme of memory.
The reading session will be followed by a micro-fiction writing workshop conducted by writers and editors Sabrina Fatma Ahmad and Abak Hussain, both of whom have also just completed a residency at the Iceland Writers Retreat in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Speaking about the choice of 'memory' as a theme for the event, Katerina Don, "This year we are reading on borders, memory, labour and celebration. I wanted to explore these 4 topics through a gender lens. Borders because we are seeing a rise in nationalism, and I wanted to explore how this is felt/ experienced by women who are usually the most confined by borders. Memory because that is something women have traditionally, but unofficially, been priestesses of, labour because that is our battleground, and celebration because there is so much to celebrate about being a woman."
Sehri Tales, founded in 2016 by writer Sabrina Fatma Ahmad, has now established itself as a Ramadan tradition for writers in Bangladesh. The rules are simple: each night at midnight, for the entire month leading up to Eid-ul-Fitr, Ahmad shares a prompt, and participants have until 6 AM (sunrise) to write original poetry, flash fiction, or create unique art, and then share it online with the hashtag #sehritales2023. Each topic can only elicit one piece of artwork from each participant, and fiction and poetry can be up to 250 words.
The Sister Library (Dhaka) is a collaboration of Goethe-Institut Bangladesh and HerStory Foundation which celebrates the literary creativity of women.