Djinns
Türkiye Germany

Djinns

by Fatma Aydemir

Summary

Every family has its secrets. Some are buried so deeply that they shape generations before anyone dares to speak them aloud.

After working in Germany for thirty years, Hüseyin Yılmaz finally fulfils his dream of buying an apartment in Istanbul, hoping to spend his retirement in his homeland. But on the very day he moves in, he dies of a heart attack. His wife, Emine, and their four children travel from Germany to Turkey for his funeral, bringing with them years of resentment, unspoken grief, and unresolved questions.

As the story unfolds through the perspectives of each family member, a complicated portrait emerges of a Turkish-Kurdish family navigating life between cultures. A son struggles to understand his sexuality, a daughter wrestles with conflicting identities, and a mother carries painful memories she has never shared. Beneath their everyday conflicts lie deeper wounds shaped by migration, racism, and the expectations of family.

With psychological depth and haunting symbolism, Fatma Aydemir explores the invisible forces that haunt us: inherited trauma, buried memories, and the secrets that pass from one generation to the next. Djinns is a powerful family saga about the longing to be understood—and the ghosts we must confront to find freedom.

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Fatma Aydemir
Fatma Aydemir

Fatma Aydemir is a German novelist and journalist born in Karlsruhe in 1986. She studied German literature and language and works as an editor and columnist for the German newspaper taz. Her writing explores migration, identity, racism, and the tensions between individual freedom and social expectations. Her debut novel, Ellbogen (Elbow), was published in 2017 and won the Klaus Michael Kühne Prize and the Franz Hessel Prize. In 2019, she co-edited the essay collection Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (Your Homeland Is Our Nightmare), which examines racism and belonging in contemporary Germany. Her second novel, Dschinns, appeared in 2022 and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize. It also received the Robert Gernhardt Prize and the LiteraTour Nord Prize. The English translation by Jon Cho-Polizzi was published in 2024, bringing Aydemir’s portrait of a Turkish-Kurdish immigrant family to a wider international readership.

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Published
2022
Author
Fatma Aydemir