Tom Cheesman | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

A broad view of the impact of Turkish German writers' "literature of settlement" on the German literary scene and on German society.

Germany has become home to some 2.5 million people of Turkish background since mass recruitments in the 1960s and 1970s to man the "economic miracle." An increasingly settled Turkish German population now asserts a permanent placein Germany: over a third were born there, and a third have German citizenship. At the same time, Turkish German writers have become integral to the German literary scene. They include bestselling novelists Renan Demirkan and AkifPirinçci; prestigious literary prize-winners Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Feridun Zaimoglu; and the critically acclaimed Aras Ören and Zafer Senocak. Tom Cheesman focuses on these and other writers' perspectives on cosmopolitan idealsand aspirations, ranging from glib affirmation to cynical transgression and melancholy nihilism. People of Turkish background are still not always recognized as equal participants in German life, but Turkish German writers' interventions defy marginalizing concepts such as "literature of migration" or "intercultural literature." What Cheesman calls their "literature of settlement" is paradigmatic for European cultures adapting to diversity and negotiatingnew identities. He shows German culture to have moved decisively beyond such "polite fictions" as the term "guest worker" or the slogan "not a country of immigration."

Tom Cheesman is Senior Lecturer in German at Swansea University, Wales.