Book Talk: Djinns by Fatma Aydemir (off-site)

This event does not require registration; see further details below.

Note that this event is organized by and takes place at the Goethe-Institut Boston, an off-site location in Boston. For questions regarding the event, please contact the Goethe-Institut Boston directly (contact information below).

We encourage visitors to our special exhibition Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation to attend a book talk featuring author Fatma Aydemir and translator Jon Cho-Polizzi as they discuss Aydemir’s novel Djinns, as part of the Boston Book Festival 2024.

Aydemir’s award-winning novel is a fast-paced, character-driven family saga set in Germany and Türkiye at the end of the 20th century. In the novel, the Turkish-born protagonist, Hüseyin, has spent the past 30 years working in Germany, and his dream of buying his very own flat in Istanbul has finally come true. But he dies of a heart attack the day he moves in. His family in Germany travel to Türkiye for the funeral. In chapters narrated from the perspectives of individual family members, we learn about each character’s personal djinns (supernatural spirits from Arabic mythology). The complexity of migration, family, relationships, and life choices is at the center of Djinns. The book invites readers to develop empathy for all the characters.

Fatma Aydemir, born in Karlsruhe, lives in Berlin and works as a journalist, publicist, and editor. Her debut novel, Ellbogen (Elbow), was published by Hanser in 2017 and won the Klaus Michael Kühne Prize and the Franz Hessel Prize for best authorial debut. In 2019, she published the essay collection Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (Your Homeland Is Our Nightmare) together with Hengameh Yaghoobifarah. Aydemir is a Guardian columnist and rewrote Goethe’s classic play Faust from a feminist perspective, for Schauspiel Essen.

Jon Cho-Polizzi is a literary translator and assistant professor of German at the University of Michigan. He is co-editor of Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah’s translated essay collection Your Homeland Is Our Nightmare as well as the translator of Sharon Dodua Otoo’s Adas Raum (Ada’s Realm) and Max Czollek’s Desintegriert Euch! (De-Integrate! A Jewish Survival Guide for the 21st Century).

This program is free and open to all. More information will be available soon. For any questions, please contact Karin.Oehlenschlaeger@goethe.de at the Goethe-Institut Boston.

Fatma Aydemir will also be present for a screening of Elbow, a film based on her novel of the same name, as well as a panel that will follow, on October 27 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. More information can be found here.

Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation is on view at the Harvard Art Museums from September 13, 2024 through January 5, 2025.