Indeed, Monika Shafi argues that Ozdamar "borrows from the comic and picaresque traditions [using] a theatrical, performance-based approach to identity and interaction."
Shafi's reading prompts one to acknowledge the 1960s cultural climate in which Ozdamar wrote. Specifically, she wrote at a time in which the theatrical writings of leftist intellectuals such as Bertolt Brecht and the documentary theater of playwrights such as Peter Weiss were quite popular. The performative novelistic structure was viewed as an indispensible method for engaging the reader in an intellectual rather than emotional manner. The overt political agenda of Brecht is may also exist in a latent form in Ozdamar's work; in contrast with scholars like Ebel that have viewed Ozdamar as somewhat primitive, a Brechtian subtext might prove the efficacy of claims such as those of Frank Stone, who sees Ozdamar as part of a cultural movement toward modernizing Germany.
Shafi's interpretation also identifies the multifaceted structure of Ozdamar's work, with a rich constitution of themes that invoke serious and comedic storytelling methods. Although this is one of the singular virtues of Ozdamar's works, such complexity is perhaps also a reason for the dismissive tendency some scholars have to dismiss her writing on the simplistic basis of her Turkish heritage.
In her article "German Literature Contested," Karen Jankowsky provides a comprehensive examination of the themes of East-West assimilation as they pertain to narrative methods such as the Bildungsroman, magical realism, and colonial literature.
In this regard, she applies the "primitive" label with which Ozdamar has been labeled and turns the categorization into a virtue. She compares Ozdamar with international luminaries such as Thomas Mann, Goethe, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marques, and Isabel Allende. Through such an interpretive approach, Jankowsky reconciles the apparently discordant political agenda that some scholars have found in the author's work with the primitivism that others have found as detrimental to Ozdamar's writing.
Although the scholarly consensus is that Ozdamar's works engage in cultural assimilation and identity formation, there is nevertheless widespread debate concerning both the value of her texts and the specific implications of her focus on the blending of German and Turkish cultures.
Works Cited
Adelson, Leslie a. The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature. Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration. (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005), 20.
Auffermann, Verena. "Die Schone und der Un-hold: Speisereste und Tiefkiihlkost oder der 15. Klagenfurter Bachmann-Wettbewerb." Slid-deutsche Zeitung (Jul 2, 1991): 12.
Cox, at. "Three Generations of Turkish Filmmakers in Germany: Three Different Narratives," Turkish Studies, 12, No.1 (2011): 115-127.
Cheesman, Tom. Novels of Turkish German Settlement: Cosmopolite Fictions (Rochester: Camden House, 2007).
Ebel, Martin. "Wie skandal's darf Literatur sein, wie belanglos? Eine schwache Jury, viele schwache Texte: Zum 15. Mal bewarben sich in Klagenfurt Autoren um den Ingeborg-Bach-mann-Preis," Badische Zeitung, (Jul 2, 1991): 16.
Esen, Adile. "Beyond "In-Between," Travels and Transformations in Contemporary Turkish-German Literature and Film," http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/64918, 2009.
Frolich, Magrit. "Re-Inventions of Turkey: Emine Sevgi Ozdamar's Life is a Caravanse-rai," Jankowsky and Love (Date Unknown): 56-73.
Geisser, Cornelia. "At that Time in the West," (Publisher Unknown, 2003).
Horrocks David, and Kolisnky, Eva. Turkish Culture in German Society Today (Oxford: Bergham Books, 1996).
Jankowsky, Karen. "German Literature Contested: The 1991 Ingeborg-Bachmann-Prize Debate, "Cultural Diversity," and Emine Sevgi Ozdamar," the German Quarterly, Vol.70, No.3 (Summer 1997): 261-276.
Karakas, Mahmut. "Identitatssuche: Der Prozess oder das Ziel?," Alman Dili ve Edebiyati Anabilim Dali (Date Unknown).
Kuruyazici, Nilufer. "Jeder Autor hat sein eigenes Bild von einer Stadt Mario Levi, Petros Markaris und Yade Kara im Vergleich," Alman Dili ve Edibiyatu Anabilim Dah, (Date Unknown).
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