Yahya Hassan’s Family Story Set for Theatre Premiere

Yahya Hassan’s family will take the stage at Denmark’s national theatre, four years after the Aarhus poet’s death. “The Hassan Family” will receive its world premiere at the Royal Danish Playhouse on September 18.

The production draws on a book written after Hassan’s mother and four siblings shared their story with author Steffen Stubager. It traces their upbringing in the Trillegården housing area near Aarhus and addresses refugee trauma, domestic violence, social failures and parallel societies.

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The Hassan Family is a family album, not only for the Hassan family, but for the Danish family.

Director Sargun Oshana is staging the work. He described it as “a family album, not only for the Hassan family, but for the Danish family.”

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We all saw the icon fall, but there was also a family left behind that had lost a son and a brother.

“We all saw the icon fall, but there was also a family left behind that had lost a son and a brother,” Oshana said. He added that the family had lacked a public voice for a long time and would now finally occupy the stage at the country’s national venue.

Hassan became nationally known through his poetry collections “Yahya Hassan,” published in 2013, and “Yahya Hassan 2,” published in 2019. He died in April 2020 and received several awards, including Bogforums Debutant Prize and the Politiken Literature Prize.

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For a long time, the family had no public voice, and now they are finally taking the stage, at the country’s national stage no less.