Foreigner (poem)

The poem Ausländer by Abdulhalik Zeytunlu is an exemplary work of early migrant literature in Germany. It was created in the early 1980s, received a certain amount of attention for a short time and is typical of the phase of literature of concern.

Content and author

The poem Ausländer illuminates the German concept of the foreigner from the historical situation of the increasingly undesirable migrant worker . Zeytunlü was a Turkish guest workerin Germany. After his work had been printed for the first time in a magazine, the transfer of the text to other publications was problematic in terms of copyright, as the author had moved away unknown. The following publications were therefore accompanied by a call that Zeytunlü should contact the publisher or editor to assert his claims. So it remains uncertain whether the poem actually comes from a Turkish migrant worker named Zeytunlu or whether “Abdulhalik Zeytunlu” is the pseudonym of a German author. The literary study of the "guest worker" literature is limited to authors whose authorship is secured.

Reprints

An anthology on migrant literature in which foreigners was republished, as it were, used a quote from the 1983 poem as the title: You made me a foreigner ... I became one . This anthology has been rendered in Braille. In 2009 the poem appeared in Denmark in the German-language anthology Deutsche Wunder .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Riemann: About life in Bitterland: Bibliography on Turkish literature in Germany and on Turkish literature in Germany . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1990.
2. ↑ Norbert Ney : You made me a foreigner - I became one. Foreigners write about life with us . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1983.
3. ↑ Peter Seibert: On the drafts of "Gastarbeiter" - and foreigner literature . In: Büchergilde Gutenberg (ed.): Land of limited possibilities . Frankfurt am Main 1987, pp. 322-341.
4. ↑ DNB 959570330
5. ↑ http://www.katalog.blista.de/kompakt.php?t=Sie+haben+mich+zu+einem+Ausl%C3%A4nder+made+...+ich+bin+einer+geworden&a=&&kid= 67985 & s = 0 # compact  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Annette Flyckt Damkjær, Henrik Borg Jensen, Elise Rasmussen: German miracles. Facts, memories, fiction . L&R Uddannelse, Copenhagen 2009. ISBN 978-87-7066-125-6