About the work
Dschinns (“Djinns”) is the second novel by the writer and journalist Fatma Aydemir, published by Carl Hanser Verlag in February 2022. The first stage version, by Selen Kara, premiered at Nationaltheater Mannheim in July 2022; further versions followed at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, among others, and Hakan Savaș Mican directs his own version at Thalia Theater Hamburg (premiere October 2026).
Plot
After almost thirty years of factory work in Germany, Hüseyin Yilmaz fulfils his dream of owning a flat in Istanbul in 1999 and dies there of a heart attack shortly after moving in. His wife Emine and their four grown or nearly grown children travel to the funeral. In six chapters, each devoted to one family member, the novel unfolds their lives, ruptures and secrets between Germany and Turkey across three decades.
Cultural significance
This German-Kurdish family novel links questions of origin, identity and gender with experiences of racism and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize in 2022. The novel project received the Robert Gernhardt Prize in 2020, and Nurkan Erpulat’s Berlin production won the Friedrich Luft Prize in 2023.