BEHZAD KARIM KHANI UND DEBORAH FELDMANN

Behzad Karim Khani and Deborah Feldman
About "When we were swans"

His debut "Dog, Wolf, Jackal" made him a shooting star of German literature: Behzad Karim Khani is now following up with a second novel. "Als wir Schwäne waren" tells the story of growing up in a Ruhr area housing estate where the kitchens have no hoods and the corridors smell of poverty. It is the 1990s and the family has fled to Germany from Iran. The mother is a sociologist, the father a writer, in whose language there are fifteen different terms for pride. The son is one thing above all: angry. Because there is violence on the streets of his neighborhood, of which his parents have little knowledge.
Behzad Karim Khani talks to Deborah Feldman about his novel,
the diaspora as a home and freedom in being a stranger.