When We Return

Dima Albitar Kalaji is a writer, editor, and curator from Damascus, currently based in Berlin. Until 2024, she was responsible for Arabic literature at “Weiter Schreiben” and co-artistic director of various projects at WIR MACHEN DAS. Her journalistic work has been published in outlets such as ZEIT Online. Her literary debut in German is set to be published in 2026.

Odai Al-Zoubi is a writer, essayist, and translator from Damascus, currently living in Berlin. He has published numerous collections of short stories and essays, and has translated works by authors such as George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, and Noam Chomsky. Most recently, in 2024, his short story collection "Bound Hearts" (in Arabic) was published by Safsafa Publishing House in Cairo.

Dima Dawood is Kanun player, born in Damascus, Syria.
She began studying the fundamentals of music theory and kanun playing at the age of eight at the Sulhi al-Wadi Institute of Music. She completed her musical training in 2014, shortly before leaving her home country and relocating to Germany.
In 2021, she completed her undergraduate studies in Social Work in Potsdam. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in World Music at the Center for World Music at the University of Hildesheim.
Dima collaborates with various bands in Berlin and across Europe. Since March 2019, she has been a member of the Italian orchestra Almara. In 2021, she participated in the dance piece We Love to Raqs at the HAU Theater and has been part of the Berlin-based project Heschek Beschek since 2022.
In addition, she has contributed to numerous events within Berlin’s diverse music scene through a wide range of other projects.

Melika Foroutan, born in 1976 in Tehran, initially studied philosophy, English, and history in Cologne from 1995 to 1998, before completing her acting studies at the University of the Arts Berlin from 1998 to 2002. During the 2003/2004 season, she was a member of the ensemble at Schauspielhaus Leipzig.
Since then, Melika has appeared in numerous radio plays, films, and television productions, including the feature film Pari, for which she was awarded the Greek Film Award for Best Actress, as well as the Netflix series The Empress, which received an International Emmy Award.

Hanadi Zarka is a writer, editor, journalist, and agricultural technician from Jableh, currently living in Berlin. She has published award-winning poetry collections, anthologies, and children's books, which have been translated into several languages. Since 2025, she has been a fellow in the “Weltoffenes Berlin” program at WIR MACHEN DAS.

Ahmad Katlesh is a writer. He was born in Damascus in 1988 and studied mathematics there. After the Syrian revolution, he fled to Jordan in 2013 and worked there as a journalist. He came to Germany in 2016 with the aid of a scholarship from the Heinrich-Böll-Haus. He has published three books with short stories and poems in Arabic. His first book in German, the poetry collection “Das Gedächtnis der Finger”, was published in 2020. Therefor the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste awarded him with the Chamisso-Publikationsstipendium. In 2024, he published the book "Komm dahin, wo es still ist. Eine Erkundung" together with Vanessa Vu through Rowohlt Verlag. He also reads literary texts for millions of Arabic-speaking listeners on the literary platform Tiklam.

Sabin Tambrea first gained wide recognition on the big screen in the title role of Ludwig II. and has since appeared in acclaimed productions such as Babylon Berlin, Ku’damm 56/59/63, Narcissus and Goldmund, The German House, and most recently as Franz Kafka in Die Herrlichkeiten des Lebens.
For many years, he was a permanent member of the Berliner Ensemble under Claus Peymann, where he took on leading stage roles including The Prince of Homburg and Peter Pan.
In 2021, Tambrea made his literary debut with the novel Nachtleben. His second book, Vaterländer (2024), is an intergenerational epic exploring questions of origin, identity, and his family’s escape from Ceaușescu’s dictatorship.

Dellair Youssef is a writer, director, and journalist from Damascus, currently living in Berlin. He has directed several feature films and published four books, most recently in 2024 the novelThe Story of Adam Bergman, or The Man Who Became Wind(in Arabic) with Khan Aljanub, Berlin.