Open Access

Sunhild Galter

• Fatma Aydemir is a young German journalist and her first novel Ellbogen (Ellbow) had an amazing success. It’s the story of four young women immigrant families in Berlin. They try to find a way to live their lives but are torn apart by the traditional way of life in their turkish or bosnian families that is not compatible with modern western lifestyle. The novel is composed of two parts, the first one dealing with their struggle to be accepted by the german society, the action of the second part takes place in Istanbul during the riots of summer 2016. The linking between the two parts is the character of one of the young women, Hazal, who kills a German student during the night of her 18th birthday. Being drunk and full of anger because she and her friends were not accepted to a well known night club she pushes the also drunk young man on the ralis of the incoming subway. She leaves her friends and runs off to Istanbul to a Facebook-friend trying to put her live together in the country of her parents. The novel doesn’t try to offer any solution for the problems of these young people only presents them in strong images.