We have moved – you find my new blog under the address:

http://dia-loga.blogspot.com

Just see for yourself!

Stefanie

Life is a Caravanserai: Has Two Doors, I Came in One, I Went Out the Other

A book title by Emine Sevgi xd6zdamar (1992)

Lately, I was talking to someone writing an anthology of Turkish literature. Soon we got to talk about authors living and writing in other countries then Turkey, having a Turkish background. Are they still Turkish authors or are they German / Dutch / British authors depending on the country they live in? Then I remembered the book title as quoted and found it time to introduce an author, writing in German with Turkish roots.

Emine Sevgi xd6zdamar was born in Malatya, Turkey. Already at an early stage in her life she felt an urge to work at the theatre. She wanted to become an actress and was part of a youth theatre in Instanbul for six years. When she was 19, she left school to go to work in a factory in Berlin, Germany. Her aim was to earn enough money to study acting in Istanbul since her parents disagreed to pay for it. During her first time in Germany she came into contact with Bertolt Brecht's texts which had a long lasting influence on her. After finishing drama school in 1970 in Istanbul, she had various parts in professional theatre productions in Turkey. Yet, being inspired by texts by Bertolt Brecht and Heinrich Heine, xd6zdamar returned to Germany in 1976 and went to work at the 'Volksbxfchne' in East-Berlin. Here she worked with Brecht's pupil Benno Besson and later went on tour with a Brecht production through France. In 1979, xd6zdamar became a member of the German theatre company 'Bochumer Schauspielhaus' led by Claus Peymann. Under his supervision she wrote her first play in 1982: "Karagxf6z in Alamania" (Blackeye in Germany), which she directed in 1986 at the 'Frankfurter Schauspielhaus'. Her engagement in Bochum ended in 1984 and she moved to Berlin in 1986 where she is still living. Next to her acting parts in theatres and films, she also writes plays, novels and poems mainly focusing on her life in Germany inspiring many Turkish/German authors. In 2007, she became a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry, an academy for the preservation, representation and promotion of the German language and literature. A quote from the author: "I have become happy living with the German language. Maybe that's why I write in German."

Lately, I was talking to someone writing an anthology of Turkish literature. Soon we got to talk about authors living and writing in other countries then Turkey, having a Turkish background. Are they still Turkish authors or are they German / Dutch / British authors depending on the country they live in? Then I remembered the book title as quoted and found it time to introduce an author, writing in German with Turkish roots.

Emine Sevgi Özdamar was born in Malatya, Turkey. Already at an early stage in her life she felt an urge to work at the theatre. She wanted to become an actress and was part of a youth theatre in Instanbul for six years. When she was 19, she left school to go to work in a factory in Berlin, Germany. Her aim was to earn enough money to study acting in Istanbul since her parents disagreed to pay for it. During her first time in Germany she came into contact with Bertolt Brecht's texts which had a long lasting influence on her. After finishing drama school in 1970 in Istanbul, she had various parts in professional theatre productions in Turkey. Yet, being inspired by texts by Bertolt Brecht and Heinrich Heine, Özdamar returned to Germany in 1976 and went to work at the 'Volksbühne' in East-Berlin. Here she worked with Brecht's pupil Benno Besson and later went on tour with a Brecht production through France. In 1979, Özdamar became a member of the German theatre company 'Bochumer Schauspielhaus' led by Claus Peymann. Under his supervision she wrote her first play in 1982: "Karagöz in Alamania" (Blackeye in Germany), which she directed in 1986 at the 'Frankfurter Schauspielhaus'. Her engagement in Bochum ended in 1984 and she moved to Berlin in 1986 where she is still living. Next to her acting parts in theatres and films, she also writes plays, novels and poems mainly focusing on her life in Germany inspiring many Turkish/German authors. In 2007, she became a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry, an academy for the preservation, representation and promotion of the German language and literature. A quote from the author: "I have become happy living with the German language. Maybe that's why I write in German."

"I looked at Violet's face in the photograph, and then at Bill, whose eyes were on his wife. His wife. His widow. The dead. The living. I picked up Erica's lipstick. My wife and her beloved characters in a dead man's books. Only fictions. But we all live there, I thought to myself, in the imaginary stories we tell ourselves about our lives, and then I picked up Matt's picture of Dave and Durango."

from What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt (2003)

Siri Hustvedt isn't an unknown author, rather unfamiliar to most readers. Unfortunately, to many she is only known as 'the wife of' author Paul Auster. Therefore, she deserves more attention by mentioning her on my web-log.

Siri Hustvedt was born in Northfield, USA. Her mother is Norwegian and her father a third generation Norwegian American, professor of Scandinavian literature. Therefore Norwegian was Siri's first language, one she still speaks. In 1967/68, the family lived in Bergen, Norway, and spent the following summer in Reykjavik, Iceland. In 1972, Hustvedt returned to Bergen for a year to live with her aunt, attending the local gymnasium. Back home, she attended college and graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in history in 1977. For a year, she worked several jobs in her hometown to save money to move to New York City to study English at Columbia University. Living on odd jobs, she continued to write proety what she did since she was 11, when she decided to become a writer. Her first published poem appeared in The Paris Review in 1981. That same year, she met her later husband, Paul Auster at a poetry reading. In 1982, she began teaching as a graduate assistant at Queens College, receiving her PhD on a dissertation on Charles Dickens. Afterwards, she started to work on her first novel. All in all, she has published five novels, the latest being The Summer Without Men in 2010. She also writes intensively on art and other scientific subjects as neuroscience. An essay of hers on Johannes Vermeer's Woman with a Pearl Necklace, brought even a change in the scholarly perception of the painting. Her academic background make her stories no easy read but nevertheless rewarding!

India is booming, Bollywood is hip and everyone saw the film Slumdog Millionaire…but have you ever read a modern Indian novel? Well, about time to make a change!

The English Book Club will focus on "The Modern Indian Novel"  - we will analyze and discuss six books by some upcoming, award winning authors as Arundhati Roy and Aravind Adiga. Curious? Send an email to scriemath@gmail.com and receive more information!

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NEW IN TILBURG!

You like reading in English? But a complete book seems too much for you to handle? Well, join in with the Short Story Reading Club! We will meet once a month, from Oct 2011 till July 2012 to analyze and discuss one short story each time from a short story collection by award winning Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri. Curious? Send an email to scriemath@gmail.com and receive more information!

"It was November, and the hot weather was starting. Even at dawn the sun was an enemy to avoid and by mid-morning the inside of the hut was unendurable. The trees gave no shade, only scattered the sunlight, and the strip of shadow that the hut made grew smaller as the day went on. By noon it had shrunk to nothing and the clearing lay flattened under the heat."

From The Secret River by Kate Grenville (2005)

Kate Grenville is actually one of Australia's best-known authors, so I learned! Since she was / still is rather unknown to me, I want to have her mentioned on my web-log. A friend of mine, returning from Australia, gave her book The Secret River to me as a present and since then I am curious about the author.

Kate Grenville was born in Sydney, Australia. She worked mainly as editor in the film industry after completing an Arts degree at Sydney University. In 1976, she moved to Europe, living all in all four years in London and Paris, writing fiction while doing film-editing and secretarial jobs. In 1980, she moved to America to do a Masters degree in creative writing at the University of Colorado.  In 1983, she returned to Australia and became a sub-editor.  When she won a literary grant in 1986, she focused on her writing. Today, she has published seven novels, a collection of short stories and four books on writing. She received several prizes in Australia, has been awarded the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and Britain's Orange Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her book The Secret River. In 2006, she was awarded a Doctorate of Creative Arts by the University of Technology, Sydney and in 2010 an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales. Her first book, Bearded Ladies, a collection of short stories, really triggers me most, since it is said that she presented characters "who try to free themselves from social and gender stereotypes". A subject that I find all so fascinating…

"A taste for the fine arts requires great cultivation, but not more than a taste for the virtuous affections, and both suppose that enlargement of mind which opens so many sources of mental pleasure. Why do people hurry to noisy scenes and crowded circles? I should answer, because they want activity of mind, because they have not cherished the virtues of the heart. They only therefore see and feel in the gross, and continually pine after variety, finding everything that is simple insipid."

From Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)