The wrong Indian

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The False Indian (2008) is Abbas Khider's debut novel . In an ingenious interplay of revealing and concealing, it is discussed, among other things, who is allowed to tell and publish whose story and how directly one's own story can be told.

The fake Indian is a novel , fairy tale , story from 1001 nights , short story and autobiography at the same time , said Jörg Plath in his review for Deutschlandradio Kultur . The title character comes from Iraq, but, "the wrong Indians" after four years of since Odyssey lives as a refugee in Germany, has got a different meaning: He does not know more if he Gypsies, Iraqis, Indians or even an alien is and rather believes his Bavarian lover, according to which he was burned and salted by many of the suns of the earth , a “modern simplicissimus ”. As a result, Khider received various grants, awards and invitations, and his tragicomic, often even burlesque novel was honored as a realistic, modern refugee tale. The reception, which often focuses on the exoticism of the plot , is commented on by Abbas Khider himself as too one-sided.

content

The wrong Indian. Novel (structure)
Motto 1
Part 1 approx. 4 pages (frame open)
138 pages (Rasul Hamid: Memories , Motto 2)
1 The wrong Indian
2 Write and lose
3 Daughters of priests
4th Talking walls
5 Save me from the void
6th The wonders
7th On the wings of the raven
8th Return of the faces
Part 2 approx. 4 pages (frame closed)

It is a frame narrative whose frame begins and ends with four pages each.

At the beginning of Part 1, the narrator reports on his state of health (“Not the first time I've lost my bearings”), his thoughts and events during a train journey from Berlin to Munich, in which a large envelope plays an important role : "On the outside in simple handwriting in Arabic ‹Erinnerungen›." The opening ends with: "I'll open the envelope."

The internal narrative belongs to the first part. It has its own title page, on which the author says “Rasul Hamid” and the title Memories . The motto of the inner story is: “‹ There are only two things, the emptiness and the drawn self. ›Gottfried Benn“. It consists of eight parts with the headings 1 The False Indian , 2 Writing and Losing , 3 Daughters of Priests , 4 Talking Walls , 5 Save Me from the Void , 6 The Miracles , 7 On the Wings of the Raven , 8 Return of Faces . In them, Rasul Hamid tells in eight variations how he fled Baghdad and cannot find a new home.

The references to the author's life story were described by Jens Mühling (in Tagesspiegel ) as a stylistic slalom between existential misery and garish comedy. Sigrid Löffler states for Sinan Antoon's Iraqi Rhapsody as well as for this debut novel by Khider that no major historical works are intended here, but rather transparently fictionalized autobiographical short novels that keep the obtrusiveness of the regime at bay through ridicule. The respective present is more important to the authors than the idiocy of everyday Iraqi dictatorship that has been left behind.

The inner story ends with a quote, which also precedes the short novel as a motto and dedication: "For those who dream of two wings a second before death".

The frame of the narrative closes with the beginning of the second part. The narrator arrives in Munich, where he is lovingly received. He wonders whether and in which variant he should tell his girlfriend Sophie something about what he experienced during the journey, for example: “That I found a manuscript in which my own story can be found, written by a stranger by the name of a stranger Rasul Hamid? ”The narrator first thinks about whose work the internal narrative is and who is allowed to publish it. In a second section he reports: “Once again I have lost all orientation in my head.” At the end of the second part, the narrator enters a café. For the times "2:16 p.m." and "2:45 p.m." from the first part, different events are now reported. At the end of the short novel it says: "I open my backpack, take out the manuscript, put it in the empty envelope and close the envelope."

reception

The emphatically naive narrative style takes some getting used to. A pronounced laconic, the good mood of the radically unsentimental escape report and the skillful undermining of clichés is very touching. However, the term "escape report" does not do justice to the literary claim, writes Hubert Spiegel and adds that the book develops within a framework, "constantly jumps back and forth between the times" and is worked with the formal awareness of a poet. In addition to the autobiographical aspects, other reviewers emphasized a high-quality literary mixture of social satire, autobiography and political prose, which is a narrative and human triumph. The categories picaresque and episodic novels were often mentioned. The multifaceted, sharp, caustic, but also self-deprecating humor of the author was understood as a means of survival and was associated with the author's life experience.

The English translation by Donal McLaughlin was presented by the Goethe Institute in India, among others. Book and author are now in a foreign language -Schulbüchern topic, as is the partially crude image of women. Piero Salabé (editor at Hanser ) is critical, saying that the novel was published mainly because an author from Iraq wrote an experience report about the refugee drama on Europe's borders. Salabé sees the first-person narrator swaying all too aimlessly between intellectuality and lasciviousness, which reveals too many (also homophobic) clichés and prejudices. One is informed about the glaring realism, but has little reference to the suffering of the people, because there is no processing process with which a reader without this life experience can participate more in what is described.

Abbas Khider himself comments that the reception generally emphasizes too much the exoticism of the plot. He directs his attention to readings that engage in unfamiliar narrative styles, are free from stereotypical ideas and do not focus on the plot alone.

Editions and versions

  • The wrong Indian. , Edition Nautilus , Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89401-576-3 .
    • (fa) هندی قلابی (Persian edition), ایران بان, [Sl] 2009, ISBN 978-600188008-7 .
    • (en) The village Indian. , translated from German into English by Donal McLaughlin, Seagull Books, Calcutta 2013, ISBN 978-0-85742-101-2 .
    • Radio play: Crossing borders: The wrong Indian . Radio play based on the novel of the same name by Abbas Khider. Editing and direction: Julia Tieke. With Abbas Khider, Konstantin Bühler, David Czesienski, Marian Funk, Matti Krause, Claudius von Stolzmann and others; Music: Georg Klein, Erik Kross, Inaam Wali; Sound: Jean Szymczak, WDR 2012 / 53'04 (Abbas Khider: " The false Indian is a game with fiction and reality - and so the author himself sometimes takes on the role of his main character in the radio play.")
    • Stage version: Münchner Volkstheater 2012, version and direction: Nicole Oder ("Nicole Oder sets up the eight storylines in the book, which are told one after the other, in order to be able to tell a story in chronological order.")

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Hubert Spiegel : ' When I write in Arabic, everything is about suffering. German keeps me at a distance. ›Abbas Khider receives an award for his debut novel. In: Chamisso (2010, 4), pp. 10-13.
  2. ↑ a b Jörg Plath: Between Baghdad and Exile. In: deutschlandradiokultur.de , February 2, 2009.
  3. ↑ a b Abbas Khider: Border Crossings: The False Indian. ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. wdr3.de , April 25, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wdr3.de
  4. ↑ Abbas Khider - The False Indian - at Edition Nautilus. (No longer available online.) In: www.edition-nautilus.de. Archived from the original on September 29, 2015 ; Retrieved September 26, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.edition-nautilus.de
  5. ↑ a b Lena Bopp: How should I tell you about my escape? About the loss of home and finding the language: The Stuttgart literary house conducts 'refugee talks'. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 2, 2015, No. 27, p. 11.
  6. ↑ Abstract ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the WorldCat entry . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / services.bibliothek.kit.edu
  7. ↑ Jens Mühling : Abbas Khider. The illegal . In: Tagesspiegel . September 19, 2008.
  8. ^ Sigrid Löffler: Iraq - history of failure. In: The new world literature and its great storytellers . CH Beck, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-406-65351-3 , p. 194.
  9. ↑ Abbas Khider: The wrong Indian. Novel - Perlentaucher, review note on Ines Kappert's contribution in Die Tageszeitung, November 29, 2008 ,. In: www.perlentaucher.de. Retrieved September 26, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Dominik Schweighofer: On the run. From Baghdad to Munich: The False Indian by Abbas Khider. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. December 2, 2009, p. 43.
  11. ↑ Gerd Bedszent: The complete bestiary. In: Ossietzky Magazin. , 5/2009.
  12. ↑ "Reading. On the run ”, in: SZ Extra. December 3, 2009, p. 3.
  13. ↑ Meike Fessmann : Laughter under torture. In the Iraqi prison: Abbas Khider's extraordinary novel The President's Oranges tells us unimaginable things poetically and soberly. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. , April 19, 2011, p. 14.
  14. ↑ Martina Scherf (in an interview with Abbas Khider and Nino Haramicwili ): The pleasure of insolence. Abbas Khider and Nino Harativili received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize today. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. , March 4, 2010, p. 59.
  15. ↑ Meike Fessmann: From Benghazi to Baghdad. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . August 26, 2013, p. 12.
  16. ↑ Abbas Khider: "The Village Indian" in the translation by Donal McLaughlin. Retrieved September 26, 2015 .
  17. ↑ Outlook: [German as a foreign language for adults]. Ernst Klett Languages, 2011.
  18. ↑ Moritz Bibow: The image of women in the novel “The False Inder” by Abbas Khider compared to the German rap song “Weg nach draussen” by Kool Savas. Thesis. GRIN Verlag, 2015.
  19. ↑ LAUGH IN ORDER NOT TO CRY. Piero Salabé, edition IV / 2008, Ataturk's heirs. Turkey on the move. (No longer available online.) In: www.kultur Austausch.de. Archived from the original on September 27, 2015 ; accessed on September 27, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kultur Austausch.de
  20. ↑ Archive entry , deutschlandradiokultur.de , January 14, 2013.
  21. ↑ Michael Laages: A story of fleeing. "The False Indian" by Abbas Khider at the Munich Volkstheater. on: deutschlandradiokultur.de , June 29, 2012.
  22. ^ Moritz von Stetten: Flight into optimism. Nicole Oder staged Abbas Khider's book The False Inder as a drama with comical features at the Munich Volkstheater. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . SZ Extra, June 28, 2012, p. 3.