Description
Coming from a small village in the Turkish provinces, literature is the bridge to the rest of the world for the boy Akhanlı and this is precisely what is reflected in the events of the novel, in which the real and the fictional are so intertwined that at times they are no longer related are separate.
Telling the real in a non-realistic, magical or fantastic way – This style is reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez and Orhan Pamuk.
Especially at the beginning his story has something Kafkaesque about it: you never really know whose eyes you are looking through – those of Sabahattin Ali or those of the nameless narrator at the end of the 20th century?
The author also skilfully deals with the atrocities of the Holocaust by bringing his protagonists to the places where the events took place and, overwhelmed by the impressions, allowing them to ask themselves questions in monologues - about humanity, its limits and abysses.
Through his own position as a German citizen and resident, but whose childhood and past lie outside of Germany, Doğan Akhanlı manages to offer an unparalleled perspective on German history: his writing is full of criticism, but one that recognizes that blame is not black and white . Critical not only of German history but also of Turkish history and of himself, he questions more than he condemns.
"Ali and his fictional character Maria enable me to think beyond borders and times. In this way, I can literarily tell of various forms of persecution and state violence in history.” This is what the author Doğan Akhanlı says about his book in conversation with Andreas Fanizadeh in the taz.on the weekend.
"A book that links German and Turkish history and draws a line from the Nazi era to almost the present day”, Angel Gutzeit introduces an interview (see below) with Doğan Akhanlı, in which his literary work as well as about his personal past.
Reviews and press:
Bavarian radio:
"Doğan Akhanlı: “In 1999 I re-read the book by Sabahattin Ali, “The Madonna in the Fur Coat”. I wanted to find a language for another novel, a character who lived in this period of the 1930's. I thought maybe it would help me if I read Sabahattin Ali, who wrote at the time, and see how he writes and what the mood was like back then. And when I finished the book, a sentence came to my mind: "The Nazis made it possible for the Jews to die in childbirth." more
Deutschlandfunk:
"An obsessive love, a tragic end, a desperate search for clues, set in Germany, Poland, Turkey during the Nazi era, but also decades later: Doğan Akhanlı, awarded the Goethe Medal in 2019, tells a story in "Madonna's Last Dream". fast-paced refugee story…” more
Radio Bremen:
"In August 2019, Doğan Akhanlı received the Goethe Medal for his courageous political commitment to international understanding, especially between the Armenians, Turks and Kurds. The Bremer Sujet Verlag has now published his novel "Madonna's Last Dream" in German. Burcu Arslan introduces the book.…” more
WDR, worth reading:
"Doğan Akhanlı has told history and stories of victims in a powerful narrative stream. "Madonna's Last Dream" is a profound examination of crimes against humanity and the consequences for the descendants..." more
WDR Culture on Wednesday:
"The German-Turkish writer Dogan Akhanli is awarded the Goethe Medal. In his work, Akhanli deals with the themes of violence, memory and human rights. A conversation with the author…” more
Buten and Binnen:
I am Doğan Akhanlı 03. September in Bremen
Jewish Salon am Grindel e.V.
"Historical reality and literary fiction blend seamlessly in this thoroughly researched and brilliantly written road trip. An unusually complex, literary sophisticated panorama of the complications of the 20th century and a valuable addition to the exclusively German-Jewish perspective.” more
Bucheule.de:
"What an impressively complex novel. In terms of style, Doğan Akhanlı approaches Orhan Pamuk or Borges with his book.”more
Ingrid Strobel:
"There is no coquetry, no self-reflection in this very personal book, and if it confused me on the first few pages, I am now grateful that Dogan Akhanli neither conceals nor tries to resolve the confusion into which his life in Germany sometimes plunges him .” more
Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazine:
Juergen Mayhofer –
Lieber Madjid,
That rarely happens to me with a book – I got stuck. Akanli has managed to weave different exciting stories and places and times together in such a way that you are literally carried away.
When he talks about the youth of his protagonist, humor is not neglected. It's nice how his village is fighting to rebuild the collapsed minaret of the village mosque in honor of the new secular Turkey.
Then he imperceptibly drove with you to Solingen, where neo-Nazis set fire to a house and many Turkish residents died, only to go a little later to Berlin-Wannsee, where in the villa he was visiting, the annihilation of the Jews was being planned with military precision.
He has the gift of connecting all of these historical events to the present and his past, giving you a new perspective on history.
And he speaks German!
A good, no, a very good book.
J. Meyhöfer
Sujet Verlag –
Thank you dear Jürgen for your comment. I think the book is great too!
Daniel Zaidan –
This author is a master craftsman of writing! He grabs you emotionally immediately and leads you through the story that you really forget space and time... with a very own, special writing style... Can only be recommended!
Dr. Manfred Kux –
The cover brings a stumbling block into view and tempts one to follow the blurred female shadowy figure in the background. So the viewer is tempted to turn to the novel.
If he allows himself to do so, the names of real victims of political persecution and extermination listed at the foot of the type area make it clear on almost every one of the more than 450 pages that the fiction created, despite all the imagination released, is working through reality.
The protagonist feels the same way. The search for a novel character by Sabahattin Ali and her traces in the politically unsettling and destructive reality of the 20th century, narratively ambitious in the resolute linking of time and action levels, leads to a confusing and disillusioning confrontation with the history of political violence, in which Center of the Holocaust stands out. Dogan Akhanli fails in the first-person narrator's attempt to continue the early encounter with a vaguely outlined literary figure with a person who accidentally comes into view in reality and to avert an assumed downfall for Sabahattin Ali's book character through narrative. History cannot be corrected. But that is no reason for resignation. On the contrary: it is important to prevent history from being forgotten and to understand that its further course depends on the living as actors. The novel by Dogan Akhanli makes a moving contribution to this. Using the example of his first-person narrator, he shows the imagination and action energies that literature, with its obvious or hidden references to reality, can unleash in the recipient. His novel is political without being bold and without poetry.
Monika Steinhoff –
Dogan Akhanli is a master of storytelling. In this novel he entangles reality and fiction, past and present, dream and reality in such a skilful way that, while reading, one sometimes wonders who wrote this novel and who it is about. Is it Sabahattin Ali, an unnamed narrator, or the author himself. All blurred!
And so we accompany the protagonists on the way from Turkey to Paris, Berlin and also through the times, from the past to the present and back again, through childhood memories, dreams and hopes and then back to Berlin, from here to Warsaw Ghetto, to Auschwitz, Bucharest and Constanta in search of Maria Puder. Because: "That's not how Maria Puder died."
And so Dogan Akhanli tells this story about the greatest crimes against humanity, about anti-Semitism and political persecution and oppression (including to the present day) with an eloquence and richly illustrated language that embraces this difficult topic with ease and also reminds that it there is always beauty and love next to cruelty and maybe also hope.
On each page of the novel, at the bottom, are stumbling blocks to commemorate the many victims who died when the Struma sank in 1942. And the author also uses hidden "stumbling blocks" in the running text, which make us think, through the clever stringing together of words or questions and answers of the novel characters, such as the answer Mrs. Dr. Narthoffs on a statement from the narrator: "That's not surprising. Nothing to notice, nothing to see, that has become fashionable in recent years.”
An all-round successful novel, absolutely worth reading, which, based on a story from the past, aptly tells a topic that is still relevant today and encourages us to think and maybe even rethink.