Imagining a German Multiculturalism: Aras Ören and the Contested Meanings of the “Guest Worker,” 1955–1980

Turkish Migrant Writers in Europe: Mehmed Uzun in Sweden and Aras Ören in West Germany

“…Beginning in the wake of a crisis in mining in the Ruhr area in the early 1960s, a group of authors, journalists and critics reawakened the tradition of a German workers’ literature, which was particularly pushed by the Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt (Workshop Circle for Literature on the World of Work) established in 1970. The New Left also brought the first German films and publications dealing with post-war labour migration from an anti-capitalist perspective, such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Katzelmacher or Günter Wallraff’s book of reportage Bilder aus Deutschland ( Images from Germany ), both issued in 1969 23 . Last but not least, the New Left founded new publishing houses – such as Rotbuch – which aimed to establish an alternative public.…”

“…It is this knowledge of both worlds – a structural advantage of those born in the literary peripheries 4 – that made the text such a success. It was hailed as ‘the first literary work by a Turk to explain why the guest workers had come to West Germany, what they had experienced, how they had survived’ and as ‘an extension of the New Left’s critique of capitalist society to include “all the Niyazis in all the Naunynstraßes”’ 23 …”

Old Europe, New Europe, Eastern Europe: Reflections on a Minor Character in Fassbinder's Ali, Fear Eats the Soul

“…By 1973, the number of Turkish guest workers had surpassed that of workers coming from other countries, and "guest worker" became associated with "Turkish." 7 Guest workers, especially when figured as Turkish, were the first "immigrants" to postwar Germany. The encounter with them tested Germans' racial and ethnic perceptions of others, revealing a continuum between historical fascism and postwar "everyday fascism."…”