Amir Shaheen: I'm not a foreigner, that's just my name

When a German native speaker has an Arabic name, it raises legitimate questions in everyday life. If someone like Amir Shaheen is also a writer and publishes books, well, then it makes sense to want to know whether his texts will be translated – into German!

Amir Shaheen describes pointedly and wittily what his name alone is able to trigger in his bio-German fellow human beings in this country. He describes his experiences in an entertaining and extremely amusing way. At the same time, he invites you to take a critical look at widespread pigeonhole thinking and what is supposedly taken for granted, to examine expectations and prejudices, to become aware of what is often only well-meant and also of the omnipresent scissors in the head...

Amir Shaheen

Also available as an e-book:

prose | 3rd edition 2022 | soft cover | 174 pages

14,80

Amir Shaheen: I'm not a foreigner, that's just my name

ISBN 978-3-96202-060-6 Genre Tag

Description

Text excerpt:

"What's your name?"

"Amir Shaheen.”

"Where are you from?"

"From Altena."

"I mean: from which country?”

"From the Sauerland."

 

My father used to be just a foreigner.

Today I have a migration background.

 

Curious? here let's go to a short reading sample!

 

Reviews and press:

Ronald Schneider fromEKZ.Library service:

Amir Shaheen is a German writer born in Lüdenscheid in 1966 (last "Trace, residual light", 2019; not discussed here), which its Arabic name
lifelong misunderstandings and annoying appropriations as "foreigners". Because Amir Shaheen is a German native speaker, son of a German mother and a father Catholic religion teacher, who is, however, Arab and formerly Israeli possessed citizenship. The slim paperback contains sad-funny anecdotes and episodes from Shaheen's life, all illustrating how much we "bio-Germans" (Shaheen) are fixated on, fellow citizens with exotic names (or even dark skinned) to fixate on their foreign origins and their being different. Shaheen connects here a piece of educational work and an appeal to our liberality with highly entertaining Stories full of funny misunderstandings and involuntary comedy. Already in smaller libraries and in secondary school libraries as a literary invitation recommended to revise our prejudices.

 

Martin Rompp from the magazineROCKS Commends Shaheen's exploration of the concept of "migrant background"Learn more…

Additional information

Weight 205 g

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