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Century of Migration. Poems, Stories, and Reports.
Publisher: Lord Mayor of the City of Bonn. Editing: Norbert Gramer. Bonn, 2000.

Preface (extracts)

Both title and subtitle point to apparently unrelated subject areas: migration and literature – although concerning literature of migrants.
Since centuries, even millenniums migration determines the history of mankind. Imagine the walk of Israelite tribes from Egypt to Palestine, the migration of peoples in the early Middle Ages, the exodus from Europe to America, Canada, and Australia in the 19th century, even homo sapiens’ expansion into all regions of the world can be considered as migration. Thus Migration seems to be a steady element of human behavior, the motives for moving vary extremly: conquest and expulsion, ethnic wars, and famines are some of the main reasons to leave the home country. Wishing a personal change or the hope of finding happiness in a foreign country are historically newer forms of migration. Catchwords like mobility or globalisation indicate again a new kind of migration.
Since the early human being tried to understand what happens around him literature is with him. If literature is regarded as trial to illustrade outer and inner incidents and is not only seen under the narrow view of some kind of national literary studies the concept of literature can be expanded and transfered to all products that reflect personal and written dealings with one’s own experience – regardless in what language or which country a book was written. Thus the discussion about the so called „Literature of Migrants“ in 1970 and 1980 failed. This discussion ignored that literature is independend of existing criterions and only determined by one’s own artistic and personal developments (see for example the work of Ernst Jandl, Concrete Poetry and Dadaism), it ignored also that some kind of pure „German Literature“ never existed.
Authors like Adelbert von Chamisso or Elias Canetti – not to mention Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt or Jurek Becker – who are accepted to be members of the circle of German speaking authors weren’t recogniced. Supposing migrant’s literature only describes one’s personal experience and fate strictly related to his or hers history of migration dispensed from dealing with this „new“ kind of literature. The fact that some of the greatest literary works – that of Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann, Hans Sahl, Charles Sealsfield for example - wouldn’t have been written without the personal experience of flight and exil remained unmentioned.
The view on migrant’s literature changed a bit when Irmgard Ackermann and Heinz Friedrich published some anthologies that were considered to be a forum for non German authors. Today authors like Rafik Schami, Carmine Chiellino, Güney Dal or Renan Demirkan belong finally to the so called German literature.

Both migration and literature meet in the book Century of Migration. Poems, Short Stories, and Reports are personal dealings with being a migrant, with – to use an old fashioned phrase - the „living between two cultures“. But they are literary dealings, mostly written in German, that show distance and nearness likewise.
The possibility to a changed, understanding and tolerate living together - that you can read between the lines - is subject of every dedicated literature, irrespective of its theme – in our case: migration.
The essays refer to both historical and latest migration developments and show on the one hand that migration is an absolutly natural thing in mankind’s history, on the other hand the partly abnormal situations that force people to leave their countries.
It is obvious that migration – aside from migration motivated by one’s own will – is indissolubly linked to expulsion, war, torture, oppression, and suffering. This suffering considered as link between migration and literature appears in the presented printings – they reflect not only the suffering caused by personal experiences that led to migration but also the suffering caused by circumstances in the host country.
But not only suffering is reflected in those literature – hope, too …

(Norbert Gramer)

Century of Migration. Poems, Stories, and Reports.
Publisher: Lord Mayor of the City of Bonn. Editing: Norbert Gramer. Bonn, 2000.

Preface (extracts)

Both title and subtitle point to apparently unrelated subject areas: migration and literature – although concerning literature of migrants.
Since centuries, even millenniums migration determines the history of mankind. Imagine the walk of Israelite tribes from Egypt to Palestine, the migration of peoples in the early Middle Ages, the exodus from Europe to America, Canada, and Australia in the 19th century, even homo sapiens’ expansion into all regions of the world can be considered as migration. Thus Migration seems to be a steady element of human behavior, the motives for moving vary extremly: conquest and expulsion, ethnic wars, and famines are some of the main reasons to leave the home country. Wishing a personal change or the hope of finding happiness in a foreign country are historically newer forms of migration. Catchwords like mobility or globalisation indicate again a new kind of migration.
Since the early human being tried to understand what happens around him literature is with him. If literature is regarded as trial to illustrade outer and inner incidents and is not only seen under the narrow view of some kind of national literary studies the concept of literature can be expanded and transfered to all products that reflect personal and written dealings with one’s own experience – regardless in what language or which country a book was written. Thus the discussion about the so called „Literature of Migrants“ in 1970 and 1980 failed. This discussion ignored that literature is independend of existing criterions and only determined by one’s own artistic and personal developments (see for example the work of Ernst Jandl, Concrete Poetry and Dadaism), it ignored also that some kind of pure „German Literature“ never existed.
Authors like Adelbert von Chamisso or Elias Canetti – not to mention Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt or Jurek Becker – who are accepted to be members of the circle of German speaking authors weren’t recogniced. Supposing migrant’s literature only describes one’s personal experience and fate strictly related to his or hers history of migration dispensed from dealing with this „new“ kind of literature. The fact that some of the greatest literary works – that of Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann, Hans Sahl, Charles Sealsfield for example - wouldn’t have been written without the personal experience of flight and exil remained unmentioned.
The view on migrant’s literature changed a bit when Irmgard Ackermann and Heinz Friedrich published some anthologies that were considered to be a forum for non German authors. Today authors like Rafik Schami, Carmine Chiellino, Güney Dal or Renan Demirkan belong finally to the so called German literature.

Both migration and literature meet in the book Century of Migration. Poems, Short Stories, and Reports are personal dealings with being a migrant, with – to use an old fashioned phrase - the „living between two cultures“. But they are literary dealings, mostly written in German, that show distance and nearness likewise.
The possibility to a changed, understanding and tolerate living together - that you can read between the lines - is subject of every dedicated literature, irrespective of its theme – in our case: migration.
The essays refer to both historical and latest migration developments and show on the one hand that migration is an absolutly natural thing in mankind’s history, on the other hand the partly abnormal situations that force people to leave their countries.
It is obvious that migration – aside from migration motivated by one’s own will – is indissolubly linked to expulsion, war, torture, oppression, and suffering. This suffering considered as link between migration and literature appears in the presented printings – they reflect not only the suffering caused by personal experiences that led to migration but also the suffering caused by circumstances in the host country.
But not only suffering is reflected in those literature – hope, too …

(Norbert Gramer)