Mein West-Östlicher Divan

The first-person narrator, an old Berber living in Germany, who in his youth had moved from the High Atlas to the lowlands of Baden, has finally got round to applying for naturalization after so many years. At the moment of this painfully felt identity transfer, he weaves himself into a web of thoughts and memories of the lost homeland, of his student days in Heidelberg and of his career in Germany in the shadow of xenophobia, racism, right-wing extremism and murderous attacks, but also in the light of the student movement, the culture of welcome, the chains of lights and the solidarity of many people.

Thus he sketches:

A quite personal West-East panorama of Germany's history at night, starting with the Heidelberg Manifesto and Solingen up to the attacks in Halle and Hanau, which he constantly confronts with the Land of Poets and Thinkers as with the Other Germany.

Voices on Fawzi Boubia and Mein West-Östlicher Divan

"Fascinating from the first to the last page - a masterpiece of irony!"

- Reinhard Knodt, writer and philosopher

Further Information

Author: Fawzi Boubia