By Heidi Noroozy
In the 1960s, with
economic recovery from the devastation of World War II well underway, West
Germany found itself with a booming economy and a shortage of labor for its
growing manufacturing, construction, and mining industries. A guest worker
treaty with Turkey solved the problem, and soon young Turks were filling the
labor gap. The arrangement was meant to be temporary, at least initially, with
each guest worker returning to Turkey after two years. This policy had
advantages for both nations: Germany gained a much-needed workforce without
having to integrate a distinctly alien cultural and religious minority into its
society. Turkey would be guaranteed a generation of highly skilled workers when
its citizens returned home—a great boon to its own economy.
But things didn’t turn
out that way. Many Turks chose to remain in Germany and raise families, even
if they remained on the fringes of society. Because these workers were
classified as “migrants” and not “immigrants,” and since their children born on
German soil did not automatically receive German citizenship, the country
became home to an entire generation (or two) of residents who were neither
entirely German nor fully Turkish. It is not a situation conducive to
intercultural harmony.
Against this historical
background, German crime novelist Jakob Arjouni has created one of the most
memorable characters in the mystery genre. Private Investigator Kemal Kayankaya
is the son of Turkish migrant workers and was orphaned at a young age. Adopted
by a German couple, he grew up in Frankfurt, speaks flawless German with a
Hessian accent and not a word of Turkish. He’s an avid fan of the Gladbach
soccer club, and he eats pickled herring with his breakfast coffee, yet none of
these German attributes save him from relentless prejudice and stereotyping.
Faced with his dark skin and Turkish features, people constantly mistake him
for the garbage collector, street vendor, and even undocumented immigrant.
Never mind that, unlike most of his Turkish-German compatriots, he’s in
possession of a rare treasure: a German passport.
In a series of five
hardboiled detective novels published over the course of nearly 30 years (from
1985 to 2012), Arjouni holds up a mirror to German society. Like the best
heroes of the genre, Kayankaya is a relentless champion of the downtrodden and
dispossessed. He’s fearless and dogged, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking lone
wolf with his own set of moral standards. However, Kayankaya’s ethnicity and
the intercultural battles he faces add a whole new subtext to the classic PI
tale.
His cases take him
through the seediest parts of Frankfurt: dark alleys, brothels, and strip clubs
with their pimps, prostitutes, gangsters, corrupt cops, and government
officials on the take. The novels explore themes of social marginalization,
racism, and unequal distribution of justice, sometimes set against the backdrop
of larger historical events, such as the breakup of Yugoslavia. Other themes
are xenophobia and police corruption (Happy Birthday, Türke!/Happy Birthday,
Turk!), eco-terrorism and political culpability (Mehr Bier/More Beer),
immigration fraud and the illegal sex trade (Ein Man, Ein Mord/One Man, One
Murder, which won the 1992 German Crime Fiction Prize), racketeering
and the lingering effects of the brutal Balkan wars (Kismet), and
religious intolerance (Bruder Kemal/Brother Kemal).
Kayankaya’s tough-guy
image is tempered by his vulnerability. His Achilles heel is his ethnicity, and
even his German citizenship doesn’t offer much security when corrupt officials
rob him of his ID and toss him in a cell with a group of illegals slated for
deportation. In violent confrontations with the bad guys, he often ends up in
worse shape that his opponents, but when it comes to battling the daily
humiliation of prejudice, no one is a match for his acerbic and often cynical
wit. His great talent is to twist hurtful attitudes and toss them back at an
adversary in a way that makes the other person look like a fool. Take this
exchange in a scene from Ein Man, Ein Mord, where the detective tries to
enlist the help of an immigration official to find the missing Thai woman he’s been hired to locate. The official won’t be deterred from her
mistaken assumption that Citizen Kayankaya has come to renew his residency
permit. She asks him his name.
“Spelling?”
“Pretty good. But I do
have some trouble with those foreign words.”
With the series spanning
several decades, Arjouni allows his protagonist to age in real time. The first
book, Happy Birthday, Türke (1985), opens on Kayankaya’s 26th
birthday, which he celebrates alone in his office until a client shows up and
he shares a piece of cake with her. In 2012’s Bruder Kemal, Kayankaya is
53 and his life has become a great deal more stable. He’s in a steady
relationship, has cut way back on his drinking, and even has his own website.
Kayankaya’s transformation reflects changes in Germany’s attitude toward its
Turkish community. When he took on his first case in the mid-1980s, a
Turkish-born German citizen was almost unheard of. Today, according to one
statistic, nearly two-thirds of German Turks hold German passports, thanks to
immigration reforms in recent years. But just as they do in real life,
prejudices die hard in Kayakaya’s fictional world, and the detective, who
claims to have never seen the inside of a mosque, finds himself mistaken for an
Islamic terrorist.
Jakob Arjouni’s cross-cultural
detective series is destined to remain at 5 books. Sadly, the 48-year-old author
died earlier this year after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer. Although I
read the series in the original German, the first four books are available in
English, and the translation of Bruder Kemal is slated for U.S.
publication in September 2013. I am pleased to see these stories reach an
international audience, for while Arjouni intended to hold up a mirror to his
native Germany, the themes he explores are universal problems that plague
societies around the world, and many of us may see our own faces reflected in
Kemal Kayankaya’s Turkish eyes.
Sounds like a fascinating series, Heidi. Wonder why I'd never heard of it before. Will definitely check it out.
ReplyDeleteI meant to ask. I know it's a Turkish name so you may not know but perhaps the author explains it in one of his books: the name Arjouni, any idea what it means?
ReplyDeleteSupriya, all I know about the name is that it is a pen name (he was born Jakob Michelsen), and that it's Moroccan not Turkish (unless it's both). It's the name of his first wife, who was from Morocco. I think you'll like the series. The stories are dark and gritty but with a lot of light moments, too. I actually laughed out loud in places.
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