Leyla (novel)
Leyla is a novel by Feridun Zaimoglu from 2006. It tells the life story of a first-generation Turkish immigrant.
content
This is reported from the perspective of the young girl Leyla. The focus is initially on the family of seven in Eastern Anatolia in the mid-1950s. She lives in cramped poverty, the father is a bad despot, leads a strict regime over his wife, sons and daughters. For Leyla, escaping the conditions of an otherwise patriarchal world means a long path of suffering that she goes through with patience. Male figures keep appearing who want to keep them from their happiness. In the end there is a life as a migrant worker in Germany.
meaning
The book has won several awards. When Zaimoglu was awarded the Carl Amery Literature Prize in 2007, Rolf-Bernhard Essig's work was characterized as the sum of the author's previous works: There are "autobiographical sprinkles [...] not the author's birth story, literally from old Interviews found their way into the novel, but for example Leyla's love for Shakespeare, especially Romeo and Juliet , a play that Zaimoglu edited. The father's tirades in Leyla : Are they not due to the Kanakian swear jargon , as it owed a lot to Old Testament and Turkish-archaic curses? The joy of nested storytelling and an abundance of stories can already be found in plays such as Casino Leger and Twelve grams of luck ”.
Plagiarism allegation
In May 2006, Zaimoğlu was accused by a literary scholar who remained anonymous, that Leyla plagiarized large parts of the novel Life is a Caravanserai by Emine Sevgi Özdamar . This was justified with parallels in the plot and comparable metaphors. Zaimoğlu denied having "ever read a line" from Özdamar's novel. Özdamar also acquitted the author of the plagiarism allegation. Later, the first up in the following month the German newspapers dominated, an attempt was behind the accusation of plagiarism, slander against Zaimoglu suspected.
Awards
For Leyla, Zaimoglu received the Grimmelshausen Prize and the Schleswig-Holstein State Art Prize in 2007 .
Theater editing
The Berlin theater director Yüksel Yolcu adapted the work for the stage with little success.
Web links
- Review notes on Leyla at perlentaucher.de
- Tom Chessman: Pseudo-political, pseudo-correct: A German literary criticism scandal. A late addendum to the debate about Feridun Zaimoglu's “Leyla” . literaturkritik.de , June 2008 (Comprehensive analysis of the so-called "literary scandal" surrounding Leyla.)
- Norbert Mecklenburg: Counterstatement: On Tom Cheesman's article "Pseudo-political, pseudo-correct: A German literary scandal" . literaturkritik.de , June 2008
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the term 'Old Testament' cf. Georg Freuling: Old Testament / Old Testament. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (eds.): The scientific Bibellexikon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff., Accessed on September 12, 2015 ..
- ↑ Rolf-Bernhard Essig : Amerypreis 2007: Laudation for Zaimoglu. In: Website of the Association of German Writers in Bavaria. Archived from the original on August 22, 2007 ; accessed on September 3, 2019 .
- ^ Arndt Breitfeld: Plagiarism allegation against Zaimoglu . Spiegel, June 8, 2007, accessed November 21, 2012
- ↑ Arndt Breitfeld: Özdamar denies plagiarism allegation . In: Spiegel Online . June 8, 2006.
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↑ Hubert Spiegel: Zaimoglu against Özdamar: In Leyla's kitchen Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 9, 2007, accessed November 21, 2012.
Norbert Mecklenburg: A Turkish literary scandal in Germany? Literaturkritik.de , Issue No. 7, July 2006