"Enlightenment Has Destroyed the Magic"

Ever since his breakthrough novel Leyla at the latest, the Turkish-born writer Feridun Zaimoglu has been a shining star in Germany's literary firmament. Eren Güvercin spoke to the award-winning author about his literary work and the German debate on integration

Feridun Zaimoglu, you've dropped out of two different degrees and once described yourself as the equivalent of a "typical loser". How did you end up in literature?

Feridun Zaimoglu: Actually, I'm what tends to be called a member of the educationally poor classes. At home we mainly watched Turkish videos and read the German tabloid Bild and its Turkish equivalent Hürriyet, and otherwise the Holy Book, the Qur'an, was kept on the top shelf, right at the top so that nothing was higher. And my family read the Qur'an too. But in fact I'd never thought of writing.

I did what my parents wanted for me and started studying medicine. That didn't work out… So I switched to art and got thrown out twice. That didn't work out either! Then I spent eleven years trying to earn a living as a painter. To be honest, it all started a year before Kanak Sprak, in 1993. That's when I started writing. It started with conversations, rage and anger, and I thought, that's just what I'll do –translate this stiletto staccato, these melancholy rhapsodies, into my own artificial language.

Your first book Kanak Sprak garnered almost exclusively negative reviews. You were denied any literary relevance. What was that time like for you?

Zaimoglu: I'd almost just broken in at that point; I didn't even know there was such a thing as a literary sector. You might say I was naïve. I thought: well never mind, I'm not planning on writing a second or a third book anyway. So it didn't really interest me to start with.

The fight for elimination and distribution in the culture sector is just as tough as in real life. Once I realised that this criterion was used as a yardstick, as a tool for determining who belongs and who doesn't, I thought, right, now I'm really going to go for it!

Your latest novel Liebesbrand is a romantic love story. How autobiographical is the book?

Zaimoglu: The story is a product of my imagination. When it comes to the first-person narrator, a former stockbroker, his rollercoaster ride, his romantic emotions, his hate-filled, angry, burning desire, I can certainly say it's my most authentic book. I'll be going one step further in my next novel. It's about great longing and where it takes you if you don't watch out – and no one ever does watch out.

You once said in an interview that love is "highly reactionary". What do you mean by that?

Zaimoglu: I'm not inclined to grant the pinschers of modernism any kind of achievement. The Enlightenment burst the magic bubble. They destroyed the dreams. They tried to destroy belief. Some of them tried to declare God insane, but it was they who lost their minds. How can that be?

They tried to fill a huge hole with images. But they're artificial images, not the dream pictures, not the magical pictures, not the extracts of faith that have existed since the dawn of mankind, since the creation of humanity. When I say love is highly reactionary, I mean it's a very specific state of being held in the grip of a sorrow we can never escape as long as we live, but also of great joy, of ups and downs.

All I'm interested in is the love between man and woman, I find everything else uninteresting. In the love between man and woman, only a single person is meant. Exclusivity and exclusion play a major role in love. And if that's not reactionary – and I use the word reactionary in a positive sense – then I don't know what is.

You've also taken part in current political debates, as a member of the German Islam Conference for a while for example. What's your assessment of the situation of Muslims in Germany, bearing in mind the "Anti-Islam Congress" scheduled in Cologne last September, which was prevented by mass demonstrations?

Zaimoglu: On the subject of the Cologne Anti-Islam Congress: these fascist pinschers come along and genuinely believe they can take a bark at religion. There have always been foolish individuals in the past who have attempted this absolutely pointless escapade. They'll come, they'll bark – but the caravan passes.

When it comes to the development of Islam here in Germany, I'm very optimistic. Despite all the attempts to bring religious Muslims into disrepute, despite these disruptive actions by publicity-seekers both male and female, we've seen that there's been organic growth. The interior minister once said a good thing: Islam is part of this country. I would add that Muslims are also part of this country. It's a development that can't be stopped in its tracks.

Of course, I do see many false prophets, many false preachers who play with fire. But on the other hand I also see a great movement of people who won't let any appeals stop them from living their faith as they see fit. Whether those appeals are anti-Islamisation rubbish or anti-Islam rubbish – there are always seasonal workers on the side of the enlighteners. They come and they'll go again. I have much reason for great optimism. The caravan passes. Much later, we'll be counting the skeletons of the dogs in the desert.

You started off as a member of the German Islam Conference. In 2007 you criticised the fact that only so-called critics of Islam were invited. You then staged a highly public campaign, offering your seat to a religious Muslim woman. What was the reaction?

Zaimoglu: Self-declared feminists and sceptics of Islam – whatever that may mean – attacked me, of course. These women worked with lies, with untruths, with distortions and manipulations. They tried to create the impression it was all a show for me. Funnily enough, with only a single exception, there were no doubts on the German side that I really meant it.

Dozens and dozens of Muslim women contacted me and said they'd expressed an interest in taking part before the Islam Conference was first constituted. But no one had shown an interest in them. Now there's been an attempt to get me back again. But as long as there is no religious Muslim woman at the table to deal with slander and lies there is no place for me either.

Interview: Eren Güvercin

Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire

Qantara.de

Portrait Feridun Zaimoglu
From "Educated Kanakster" to Literary Star
For Feridun Zaimoglu, it's been a long hard fight to be taken seriously as a German author. But the linguistic juggler with Turkish parents and a German passport has now received the Corine International Book Award for his novel Liebesbrand. Eren Güvercin traces his path from the early days of Kanak Sprak to his current high

Feridun Zaimoglu's "Black Virgins"
Islamo-Feminism Goes Radical
They are furious, shameless and radical: In his documentary theatre piece "Black Virgins," Feridun Zaimoglu has lent a voice to young Muslim women. Nimet Seker reports

Interview with Ilija Trojanow
"What Is the Other?"
The subject of Ilija Trojanow's acclaimed novel "The Collector of Worlds" is about real-life British adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton, a polyglot colonial captain, who apparently converted to Islam to facilitate his entry into the inner circles of Muslims. Interview by Ulrike Sárkány