Germany has become home to some 2.5 million people of Turkish background since mass recruitments in the 1960s and 1970s to man the "economic miracle." An increasingly settled Turkish German
population now asserts a permanent place in Germany: over a third were born there, and a third have German citizenship. At the same time, Turkish German writers have become integral to the
German literary scene. They include bestselling novelists Renan Demirkan and Akif Pirin�禮ci; prestigious literary prize-winners Emine Sevgi �繞zdamar and Feridun Zaimoglu; and the critically
acclaimed Aras �繞ren and Zafer Senocak. Tom Cheesman focuses on these and other writers' perspectives on cosmopolitan ideals and aspirations, ranging from glib affirmation to cynical
transgression and melancholy nihilism. People of Turkish background are still not always recognized as equal participants in German life, but Turkish German writers' interventions defy
marginalizing concepts such as "literature of migration" or "intercultural literature." What Cheesman calls their "literature of settlement" is paradigmatic for European cultures adapting to
diversity and negotiating new identities. He shows German culture to have moved decisively beyond such "polite fictions" as the term "guest worker" or the slogan "not a country of immigration."
Tom Cheesman is Senior Lecturer in German at Swansea University, Wales.
