Fatma Aydemir // Dschinns

In the organizer's words:

The author Fatma Aydemir will be at the reading in person.

Hüseyin has worked in Germany for thirty years and is now finally fulfilling his dream: a condominium in Istanbul. Only to die of a heart attack on the day he moves in. His family travels from Germany to attend his funeral. Among them: His daughter Sevda, the survivor of an arson attack that was never solved.

Fatma Aydemir's award-winning social novel "Dschinns" is Cologne's "Book for the City" this year. To mark the occasion, the author will read from the novel and talk to presenter Maryam Aras about what her "Dschinns" might have to do with Cologne. A representative of the initiative "Herkesin Meydanı - Platz für alle" will also be invited to the discussion to discuss the novel's core themes of grief and remembrance from a community perspective.

Fatma Aydemir is a writer and journalist. Her multi-award-winning debut novel "Ellbogen" was published in 2017. In 2019, she co-edited the essay collection "Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum". Her second novel "Dschinns" was published in 2022 and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize. The literary magazine "Delfi", which she co-founded and co-edits, was published for the first time in September 2023. She is the author of the play "Doktormutter Faust" and curates and moderates the talk series "Materien" at Schauspiel Essen.

Maryam Aras is a literary scholar, critic and author. She was born in Cologne, where she studied Islamic Studies, English and Political Science. Her essays and texts appear in the Berliner Zeitung and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, among others. Her main topics are postcoloniality, aesthetics of non-white writing and its reception patterns in German literary criticism. In 2022, Maryam was appointed to the jury for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. In May 2025, her literary debut "Dinosaurierkind. An essay that tells a new narrative of the transnational Iranian student opposition of her father's generation, which first fought against the Shah regime and is still fighting against the Islamic Republic today.

A cooperation with the Literaturhaus Köln

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Box Office 15 Euro