PhD student, German
anagumakate[at]gmail.com
The term Gastarbeiterliteratur,
or literature written by guest workers, refers to a largely autobiographical
body of literature written by first generation immigrants who came to primarily
The trend of literature written by guest workers had many traits in common with the more general tradition of worker’s literature, which describes the daily existence and living conditions of the working class. Guest worker literature provided readers with a means of seeing through a double estrangement; these authors were members of the working class in addition to being immigrants, thus offering readers a window into multiple very different existences. Guest worker literature provided readers with a voyeuristic look at the thoughts, experiences, and daily lives of those individuals they found intriguing, but likely would not want to meet (Chiellino, 1995, 50-51).
Guest worker literature and Literatur der Betroffenheit were looked to as sources of information,
as accounts of foreign circumstances that interested readers more in terms of
curiosity and solicitousness than because of any true,
politically motivated interest in changing conditions. It was key in setting a foundation for the way in which German
literature by authors of non-German heritage is read in
Although guest worker literature was usually written in German, in the majority of cases, it was written by non-native speakers and individuals without secondary education. Therefore a unique use of the language became characteristic of the genre. The German employed by these writers, the specific linguistic strategies, and the manner in which writers inflected German with words and structures from their native languages have been, and continue to be, associated with immigrants in Germany. Gastarbeiterdeutsch, “Fremdendeutsch” (von Zimmermann, 19), or Kanakdeutsch in the specific case of Turkish migrants, change and evolve, however. Public perception and associations also change according to the social and political status, either positive or negative, and visibility of these sociolects.
Biondi, Franco and Rafik Schami. “Literatur der
Betroffenheit: Bemerkungen zur Gastarbeiterliteratur.” Zu Hause in der
Fremde: ein bundesdeutsches Ausländer-Lesebuch. Ed. Christian
Schaffernicht. Fischerhude: Verlag Atelier im Bauernhaus, 1981.
Chiellino, Carmine. Fremde: Discourse on the
Foreign. Trans. Louise von Flotow. Toronto: Guernica, 1995.
von Zimmerman, Christian. “Kulturthema Migration und Interkulturelles
Schreiben”.
recherces germaniques. Ed. Christine Maillard. Revue Annuelle. Serie N˚3, 2006. 7 – 25.