Männliche sehnsucht in (türkisch)-deutscher gegenwart in feridun zaimoğlus liebesbrand

My article examines questions of male desire in the (Turkish-)German present of the protagonist David in Feridun Zaimoğlu‟s Liebesbrand (2008). In his novel, Zaimoğlu connects the notion of desire with his perceptions of Romanticism: Zaimoğlu understands Romanticism as a specifically German phenomenon. Thus the novel reverberates both scenes of German everyday life as seen through David‟s eyes and German literary traditions as perceived by Zaimoğlu; as such, Romanticism renders the idea of the (male) desire for love and the burning longing for a woman, Tyra, whom David follows after a short encounter in Turkey. Aspects of belief, that is, belief in love as well as in God, play a significant role: they reflect both Romantic popular piety and Islam, and their fusion allows Zaimoğlu to convey David‟s Muslim background and to merge it with his ‚German-Romantic" present. I analyse how Zaimoğlu creates ‚ein Buch Wandlungen und Verwandlungen‟ (‚a book of transformations and conversions", Zaimoğlu) and to conceive German-Turkish literature such as his as natural continuation of German literary history.

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Turkish-German ,

Feridun Zaimoğlus ,

Male ,