Sama Maani

Sama Maani (born 1963 in Graz ) is an Austrian writer , psychiatrist and psychoanalyst .

Life

Sama Maani was born as the son of Iranian Baha'is in Graz and grew up in Austria, Germany and Iran. He studied medicine in Vienna and philosophy in Zurich .

Maani lives and works in Vienna and works as a psychoanalyst for the Hemayat association, among others , which supports survivors of war and torture.

plant

Maani has published in German-language and Iranian magazines (including Kayhan London and Kaveh ) and anthologies , including a. in the literary magazines kolik and Wespennest .

The writer Vladimir Vertlib said of Maani's text The Halo Orgasm , for which he was awarded in 2004 : “A linguistically virtuoso text that relentlessly questions the attribution of identity. Playing with clichés, the ambiguity of which only becomes recognizable through grotesque exaggeration, the depths of the Austrian, Swiss, but also the Persian 'soul' are apparently explored. But the protagonist, who comes from Persia, is just as much a typical Austrian who attracts the resentment of his Swiss neighbors as he is a typical immigrant or typical Persian, ultimately atypical everywhere and thus again very common for the present day. "

This was followed by narrative and essayistic texts in which Maani deepened these topics. In the epistolary novel Unbeliever , published in 2014, he also deconstructs and ironizes cultural attributions down to the grotesque. Without comment, his characters are given space for their descriptions, which drift further and further apart.

His collection of essays Refusal of Respect , published in 2015, borrows from Sigmund Freud and Theodor W. Adorno and analyzes the contradictions of the Enlightenment and the danger of its reversal using modern examples such as the Islamic revolution in Iran. He criticizes the concept of cultural identity and defends universalism against cultural relativism as well as psychoanalysis as a cultural criticism against psychotherapy.

Awards

• 2004: Prize of the literary competition Writing between cultures
• 2007: Austrian state grant for the novel project Unbeliever

Publications (selection)

Monographs

• Incredulous. Novel. Drava , Klagenfurt 2014, ISBN 978-3-85435-733-9 .
• Refusal of respect. Why we shouldn't respect foreign cultures. And neither is your own. Six essays. Drava, Klagenfurt 2015, ISBN 978-3-85435-757-5 ( table of contents ).
• The halo orgasm and other stories. Drava, Klagenfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3-85435-790-2 .
• Tehran wonderland. Drava, Klagenfurt 2018, ISBN 978-3-85435-867-1 .

stories

• The halo orgasm. In: Christa Stippinger (Hrsg.): Language leaps . Edition Exil, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-901899-24-3 .
• Eyewitness hour. In: kolik . No. 29, 2005.
• Dear Central Committee. In: kolik. No. 36, 2007.

Essays

• Why we can't talk about Islam. In: eXperimenta. May 2012 (also in denial of respect ).
• Emma and the revolutions in Iran. About the Freudian and Benjaminian of the Iranian freedom movement. In: Werkblatt. No. 71, 2/2013 (also in denial of respect ).
• Why psychotherapy doesn't help us. A plea for psychoanalysis. In: Provider. No. 109, March 2016 (also in denial of respect )
• When foreign cultures disappear Deutschlandfunk, January 27, 2019

Web links

• Literature by and about Sama Maani in the catalog of the German National Library
• Sama Maani's blog
• Interview malmoe: "With the term Islamophobia we are pestering the racists"
• Interview in the WDR 5 speaking time
• »Wrong terms like› Islamophobia ‹reproduce the new racism«  , interview in Jungle World , March 29, 2018.
• Deutschlandfunk essay and discourse from January 27, 2019: Expeditions. When foreign cultures disappear

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Event announcement: Why psychotherapy doesn't help us - Plea for psychoanalysis , Austrian working groups for psychoanalysis, Linz / Graz section, May 2015.
2. ↑ Literaturhaus Wien: Maani, Unbeliever. In: literaturhaus.at. March 25, 2009, accessed December 6, 2015 . 
3. ↑ UNI Klagenfurt - Sama Maani: Unbeliever. In: uni-klu.ac.at. October 1, 2015, accessed December 6, 2015 . 
4. ↑ ORF -Nachtquartier with Dorothee Frank: mission summary , October 18, 2013, oe1.orf.at.
5. ↑ Rüdiger Heins , Carolina Butto Zarzar and Luise Hepp (eds.): Unspeakable pronounced , eXperimenta, May 2012.
6. ↑ In 'kolik'
7. ↑ In Wasp's Nest '
8. ↑ The halo orgasm, echoraum.at.
9. ↑ Birgit Pölzl : Sama Maani & Trick-my-Film: UNGLÄUBIG - A reading cinema , kultum.at, April 10, 2014, accessed on May 3, 2016.
10. ↑ Walter Fanta: Literaturhaus Wien: Maani, Unbeliever. In: literaturhaus.at. March 25, 2009, accessed December 6, 2015 . 
11. ↑ The freedom to remain seated. In: jungle-world.com. November 12, 2015, accessed December 6, 2015 . 
12. ↑ Martin Schenk: But when does the pre-war begin? In: diepresse.com. September 4, 2015, accessed December 6, 2015 . 
13. ↑ Vienna Libraries
14. ↑ Awarding of prizes
15. ↑ Art Report 2007 ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2014 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: kunstkultur.bka.gv.at. Retrieved May 1, 2016 (PDF)