Sherko Fatah

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Sherko Fatah 2013
Sherko Fatah at LitCologne 2019

Sherko Fatah (born November 28, 1964 in East Berlin ) is a German writer with Iraqi-Kurdish roots. In all of his books he addresses the violent clashes in the Kurdish border area between Iran , Iraq and Turkey and their effects as far as Europe . The author was awarded the Great Art Prize Berlin in 2015. In the same year he received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize for his complete works to date and especially for the novel The Last Place .

Life

Sherko Fatah's father was a Kurd from Iraqi Kurdistan . The orphan came to study in Vienna through an uncle . When the GDR established diplomatic contacts with the Arab world, Sherko's father received a scholarship to study in their national territory. He started in Leipzig , but then moved to East Berlin . There he married a German woman and worked as a translator. Today he and many relatives live in Sulaimania in Northern Iraq.

Sherko was born in 1964 in the former eastern part of Berlin and spent the first years of his childhood in Berlin-Wedding and later in Berlin-Lichtenrade . The family was able to travel from the GDR for the first time to Iraq with the little boy in 1969 because the father had not become a GDR citizen and had an Iraqi passport. During the longer stays in his father's home country, Sherko received private lessons from his mother. In 1975 the family moved to Vienna and finally to West Berlin. Fatah studied philosophy and art history here from 1990 to 1996. He finished his studies with a thesis on philosophical hermeneutics with a master's degree . During this time he traveled frequently to Iraq and in 1985/1986 also visited India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Further trips took him to Central Africa in 2000 and several times to the USA. Today Fatah lives as a freelance writer in Berlin.  He is a member of the PEN Center Germany .

Create

Sherko Fatah 2016

Sherko's life is shaped by different worlds of origin and the change between cultures. Above all, his books reflect the clash between the European and the Arab world. His characters experience uprooting, war, violence, torture, flight and exile in various facets.

Sherko's first novel Im Grenzland was awarded the Aspect Literature Prize in 2001. Meike Feßmann writes about this work in the world that the reader has gone to a mined area and is without orientation. A cross-border commuter works as a smuggler to survive in the dangerous Kurdish no man's land between Iran, Iraq and Turkey. He experiences how little human life counts here.

War atrocities in Algeria are constantly present in the following story Donnie through the tormenting thoughts of a Foreign Legionnaire. Donnie was his dog when he lived on an island. In general, he seems to have more compassion for animals than for people. As a result, the former soldier remains a stranger in his present world. Although he lives in safety as a landlord in Tyrol, the memory has to be brought to light in fragments by asking questions.

Fatah's next novel Onkelchen begins in Germany and again deals with violence. Here the student Michael meets the refugee Omar. This Iraqi teacher was tortured. The memories and the mutilated mouth silenced Omar. Michael wants to understand the silent one. He makes his way to the stations of Omar's escape to northern Iraq. On the way, Michael's curiosity is satisfied, but only after painful personal experiences.

In 2008 Sherko's book The Dark Ship was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. Once again, the author focuses on the development of violence and its consequences. The novel tells the story of the young Iraqi Kerim. After the murder of his father, the boy joins the Islamist warriors of God. Kerim tries to escape their radicalism with its cruel reality by fleeing to Germany. Here the seeker is safe and may experience love, but he cannot erase the acts of violence from his memory. Terrorist training has shaped him and is catching up with him again.

The novel A White Land , published in 2012, tells of Germany's connection to the Arab world during the Nazi era. Political events are embedded in the life story of the young Iraqi Anwar. The messenger and trained thief, who comes from a humble background, does jobs reliably and without scruples. Anwar returns to Baghdad from the Second World War with a disfigured face. Despite all the bad experiences, he is still ready to serve as a henchman for those who promise him a small advantage.

In 2015, the Great Art Prize Berlin for the novel The Last Place emphasizes the anticipation of current world events through Fatah. The author again brings into our consciousness the reality of a war that has already reached us. This work was also given special mention at the awarding of the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize in the same year. The main character is the young adventurer Albert. He goes to Iraq and wants to help protect archaeological treasures from the raids by fundamentalist militias. He is kidnapped together with his translator Osama. As prisoners, they are on the road with various terrorist groups and involuntary witnesses of their cruel behavior. Fate gives Albert and Omar time to talk. Everyone dives into the other's world and deals with the other's culture. In the process, they become more and more alienated.

reception

The literary magazine Lire counted Sherko Fatah 2005 among the "50 writers of tomorrow".

The author focuses in particular on northern Iraq with its various ethnic groups and religions. He shows today's disputes about with one another or against one another. Because of his origins, he was able to sensitize in particular to the “cultural rifts between East and West”, according to the jury of the Chamisso Prize: The author had made an explosive and highly topical topic accessible to contemporary German literature. In addition, his works enriched with their relentless presentation of the war with its violent excesses. The focus is always on "the differentiated inner life of the victims who suffer inhuman things and their never-to-be-extinguished hope for a peaceful and humane world". "He leads his characters to the end of their world, to the opposite pole of their previous experiences and watches what happens to them." He creates pictures, but does not provide the reader with any solutions.

In his prose, Sherko draws landscapes in which the thoughts and feelings of his protagonists are reflected. Recorded animal episodes can be interpreted symbolically. The international literature festival 2008 writes that his language is characterized by its visual power, that it is deliberately unadorned and almost brittle, which creates “a subtle tension at the same time”. Cicero Online states that the clash between oriental and occidental culture has not yet been described as “so naked, so brutal, so beyond all romantic transfiguration”.

Works

Autograph by Sherko Fatah (2016)

Awards

Research literature

Web links

Commons : Sherko Fatah  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Großer Kunstpreis Berlin to the author Sherko Fatah In: Akademie der Künste, press release January 15, 2015, accessed on March 15, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b c Chamisso Prize to author of a war novel . In: Zeit online , January 21, 2015, accessed on February 28, 2015.
  3. ^ Paul Jandl: Ernstfall literature . In: Die Welt , January 3, 2015, p. 7.
  4. ↑ a b c d Volker Weidermann: The west is soft, the east almost without hope . In: faz.net, August 20, 2014, accessed February 28, 2015.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Sherko Fatah . In: Munzinger Online / People - International Biographical Archive.
  6. ↑ Sherko Fatah : In: BR alpha-Forum , Adelbert von Chamisso Prize Winner 2015, March 5, 2015.
  7. ↑ The West was once fashionable . In: Die Zeit , Feuilleton, August 28, 2014, pp. 39–40.
  8. ↑ Profile of Sherko Fatah . In: literaturport.de, accessed on February 28, 2014.
  9. ↑ Meike Feßmann: "In the borderland": contraband . In: Der Tagesspiegel , accessed on March 2, 2015.
  10. ↑ Sherko Fatah Donnie . In: jungundjung.at, accessed on March 5, 2015.
  11. ↑ Niklas Bender: eyes without a look . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Feuilleton, December 3, 2004, accessed on March 10, 2015
  12. ↑ Sherko Fatah [Germany] . In: 15th International Literature Festival Berlin, accessed on March 3, 2015.
  13. ↑ War refugee in Kreuzberg . In: Berliner Morgenpost , March 7, 2008, No. 66, p. 20.
  14. ↑ Thomas Hummitzsch: Willing and thoughtless . In: diesseits.de, accessed on March 11, 2015.
  15. ↑ Thomas E. Schmidt: The great silence in Baghdad . In: Zeit online , January 12, 2012, accessed on March 11, 2015.
  16. ↑ a b “History of kidnapping and criticism of ideology at the same time” , review by Detlef Grumbach on Deutschlandfunk from December 3, 2014, accessed December 12, 2014.
  17. ↑ Sigrid Löffler: Chamisso Prize laudation for Sherko Fatah Adelbert von Chamisso Prize 2015 ( memento of the original from April 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bosch-stiftung.de 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. , accessed March 8, 2015.
  18. ↑ " Lire magazine counts two Germans among the 'authors of tomorrow'". In: Die Welt , May 25, 2005, p. 25, section: Feuilleton.
  19. ↑ Sherko Fatah [Germany] . In: Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin 2008, accessed on March 13, 2015.
  20. ↑ Jörg Magenau: Loyal to treason and murder . In: Cicero -Online, January 25, 2012, accessed on March 14, 2015.
  21. ↑ Sherko Fatah receives "aspekte" literature award 2001 . In: ZDF press portal, September 21, 2001, accessed on March 16, 2015.
  22. ↑ Critic Awards 2002 to Claudio Abbado and others . In: Die Welt , April 26, 2002, p. 29.
  23. ^ Hilde Domin Prize for Fatah . In: Die Welt , July 9, 2007, p. 23, section: Feuilleton. 
  24. ↑ Turmhoch // 6 out of 20: The shortlist for the German Book Prize . In: Der Tagesspiegel, September 18, 2008 p. 29, culture.
  25. ↑ Five authors hope for the Leipzig Book Prize . In: Berliner Morgenpost , February 10, 2012, p. 20, section: Culture.
  26. ↑ Great Art Prize Berlin 2015 to Sherko Fatah . In: Akademie der Künste, press release, January 15, 2015, accessed on March 15, 2015. 
  27. ↑ Former scholarship holders - artist residency Chretzeturm. Retrieved September 6, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Fatah, Sherko
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH East Berlin