discussion series
Reflecting Exile[s]

Literary speech and representation: Ronya Othmann and Deniz Utlu in conversation with Andreas Fanizadeh

Wed, 13.12.2023
7:00 PM - 21:00 ACUD Studio

© Cihan Cakmak

Ronya Othmann was born in Munich in 1993 and works as an author and journalist. She has received the MDR Literature Prize, the Caroline Schlegel Prize for Essay Writing, the Open Mike Poetry Prize, the Gertrud Kolmar Prize and the Audience Prize of the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition, among others. She has been writing the column Import Export for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung since 2021. Her debut novel Die Sommer (2020), for which she was awarded the Mara Cassens Prize, and the poetry collection Die Verbrechen (2021), for which she received the Orphil Debut Prize and the Düsseldorf Poetry Debut Prize, were most recently published by Hanser.

"My family on my father's side are Ezîds",  Ronya Othmann wrote in an essay. Against the backdrop of Hamas' terror attack on Israel, she criticized the behavior of many Muslims after 7 October in Germany. And in doing so, she clarified, "My grandmother fled Syria in 2014 to escape IS. Our relatives in Iraq only survived because they had a car. In their village, the IS left a mass grave. Even then, major protests in Muslim-majority countries failed to materialize."

© Suhrkamp Verlag

Deniz Utlu, born in Hanover in 1983, studied economics in Berlin and Paris. From 2003 to 2014, he edited the culture and society magazine freitext. His debut novel, Die Ungehaltenen, was published in 2014 and adapted for the stage at the Maxim Gorki Theater in 2015. From 2017 to 2019, he wrote the column Einträge ins Logbuch for the Tagesspiegel. His second novel Gegen Morgen was published in 2019. He has also written plays, poetry and essays (for FAZ, SZ, Tagesspiegel and Der Freitag, among others). He conducts research at the German Institute for Human Rights and organizes the literature series Prosa der Verhältnisse at the Maxim Gorki Theater. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Alfred Döblin Prize and the Literature Prize of the State Capital of Hanover.

Deniz Utlu has no exile biography, like the author Ronya Othmann. However, we would like to talk to both authors about how much they and their work are shaped by family biographies and origins. How much they are to be read as individuals, and what perhaps distinguishes their view of the "new Germans" from that of an "old German". A discussion that takes on a new urgency against the backdrop of newly ignited cultural struggles over open societies, the disinformation of authoritarian regimes, and the wars over Ukraine and Israel.

Moderation:

© Andreas Fanizadeh

Andreas Fanizadeh (born 1963 in St. Johann i.Pg., Austria) is head of the culture department of the taz in Berlin. Previously, he worked for Die Wochenzeitung in Zurich and ID Verlag in Berlin, among others. There he also co-edited the magazine Die Beute.