Fahimeh Farsaie is an author and journalist who was born in Teheran, the capital of Iran. Her book “One Tuesday my mother decided to become a German” depicts what it means to approach live in Germany through the eyes of a 20-year-old.

She came as a young woman with a small daughter as a refugee to Germany, therefore experiencing first-hand how one must get accustomed to a strange culture. Leaning the German language with new vocabulary, but also a completely new alphabet was not easy, especially because she did not even have enough money at the beginning to buy language books.

Ms Farsaie has a clear liberal vision and even went to prison for this: she was jailed for 18 months during the Shah regime. But she did not fare better under the revolutionary regime of Ayatollah Komeini so she fled to Germany. At the beginning, it was very difficult to find work, in spite of her education as an attorney and author. In the meantime, she is a recognized writer and works for Deutsche Welle.

The impressive reading was supported financially and organisationally by the city of Kerpen.