„He can write like almost no one else, and in this book he once again shows what a powerful storyteller he is, what a poetic language he has. … For me, it is the most important and heartbreaking book of the autumn.“ – Elke Heidenreich, Spiegel Online
„The ‚Homeland Book of a Stateless Person‘, a reflection on being a foreigner and the blessing of separation, translated: a book about Germany.“ – Sonja Zekri, Süddeutsche Zeitung
When We Were Swans, this is a book about Bochum – and is coming to the stage in Bochum. The prt shows the world premiere of this important and impressive novel by Behzad Karim Khani directed by Antigone Akgün.
When We Were Swans, this is a book about growing up and coming of age, about Bochum and the Hustadt, back in the 1990s when the housing estate behind the Ruhr University was a social hotspot. People from over 50 nations live here, many in precarious conditions. The novel tells a quiet, poetic and thoughtful story about life and survival in Bochum and the dream of a different life.
Behzad Karim Khani came to Bochum in this housing estate from Iran with his parents in 1986. His parents are intellectuals and artists, and so he experiences a multi-layered alienation: the alienation of being in another country, another language and culture and being degraded there as a „foreigner“, but also the alienation towards a different class, a different social milieu.
Directed by Antigone Akgün the novel comes to the stage as a dialogue between the narrator and the city. The city is represented by a speaking chorus of young people from the Hustadt district. They, who live there today, take the floor and, much like in a Greek tragedy, give voice to the city.
Behzad Karim Khani was born in Tehran in 1977 and grew up in a family of artists. He was not yet ten years old when he came to Germany with his parents and they settled in the Ruhr region. He studied art history and media studies at Ruhr University Bochum. Since 2003 he has lived in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where he ran the Lugosi bar from 2012 to 2022. His debut novel „Hund, Wolf, Schakal“ was published in 2022 and had its premiere at the Gorki Theater in Berlin.
Antigone Akgün works as a director, writer, performer and dramaturg at German-language municipal and state theatres as well as in the independent scene. Following actor training in Greece, she studied theatre, film and media studies, Greek philology, classical archaeology and philosophy in Frankfurt, alongside dramaturgy (MA) at the Hessische Theaterakademie. In her artistic practice, she engages with the rewriting of canonical literature and seeks to make multiperspectivity audible and visible. In 2021, her debut play „Das Erste Festmahl“, which explores the lived experience of non-normative female bodies, was nominated for the Hans-Gratzer scholarship at the Schauspielhaus Wien. In the same year, she began her collaboration as a writer with the municipal ensemble of the Nationaltheater Mannheim. In 2022, she made her directorial debut at the Theater Bremen with Bertolt Brecht's fragment „Der Brotladen“, for which she was invited to the 2023 Brechtfestival. She is also deeply committed to children's and youth theatre – she has been a juror for the Theatertreffen der Jugend since 2018 and worked as a curator for the AUGENBLICK MAL! festival in 2022/2023. In January 2025, she directed Dinçer Güçyeter's „Unser Deutschlandmärchen“ at the Theater Aachen.
Funded by the Kemnader Kreis.
