The New Book in Town

Reading and Discussion

Tue, 25.10.2022
6:30 PM Goethe-Institut Irland

Would you like to be introduced to new German-language books? Would you also like to be able to recommend them to your friends who do not speak German?

You'll find the title you're looking for with our new series "The New Book in Town"! In this series, we will present German books recently translated into English and invite the authors or translators to a reading and discussion. There will be exchanges about all topical issues in Germany and Europe. We look forward to your participation in the discussion and hearing your thoughts about the New Book in Town.
For our first meeting in October, we will be discussing 52 Factory Lane with the author himself, Selim Özdoğan as well as with the novel's translators, Katy Derbyshire und Ayça Türkoğlu.
                                   
Please note the conversation will be in English. Registration under library-dublin@goethe.de

About the book:
German Title: Heimstraße 52

It is the second part of the Anatolian Blues trilogy.

‘You’ll live out your lives in a foreign country,’ Gül is warned. But the whole world is foreign when you’re far from your loved ones. The train ride to Germany ushers in the days of long-awaited letters, night-time telephone calls and blissful summers back home. The years of hard work will flow like water before her house in Turkey is built and she can return.
Until then, there will be fireworks, young love, and the cassette tapes of the summer played on repeat. In these years, Gül will learn all kinds of longing: for her two daughters, for her father the blacksmith, for scents and colours and fruit. Yet imperceptibly, Factory Lane in this cold, incomprehensible country becomes a different kind of home.
A novel about how home is found in many places and yet still eludes us.
‘A modern-day fairy tale.’ NDR
‘Honest, urgent and emotional.’ Augsburger Allgemeine
‘An absolutely recommended novel that quietly stimulates the reader’s thoughts and portrays the hard work behind seeing a new country as home.’ migazin

Endorsement:
‘A unique novel about the losses, sacrifices and determination of generations of migrant women; as important as it is moving.’ Preti Taneja

Biographies:

Selim Özdoğan was born in Germany in 1971 and has been publishing his prose since 1995. His work has won him numerous prizes and grants. Aside from writing, he is a very experienced yoga practitioner and an inveterate literary performer. He has published several short story collections and twelve novels, including The Blacksmith’s Daughter (2021) and 52 Factory Lane (2022) with V&Q Books.

Ayça Türkoğlu is a writer and literary translator based in North London. Her translation interests include the literature of the Turkish diaspora in Germany and minority literatures in Turkey.

Katy Derbyshire translates contemporary German writers including Olga Grjasnowa, Clemens Meyer, and Heike Geissler. She teaches literary translation and also heads the V&Q Books imprint.

ISBN print:
978-3-86391-328-1

ISBN ebook:
978-3-86391-329-8

Similar works:
Elena Ferrante meets Andrea Levy – one woman’s life in loving detail, this time her working life raising daughters as an immigrant to Germany.