Vatermal

Arda never knew his father. The only thing that connects them is a small, black mark underneath his left eye – his birth mark. Arda is in his early twenties. He has organ failure and is lying in intensive care. He’s running out of time: time that, until now, he has wasted with his mates and that the German authorities have taken away from him. For ten years his mother and sister did not exchange a single word with each other. Now they meet every day in the hospital with Arda literally in the middle, lying between them. In the time he has left he writes a letter to his father Metin. He should know everything about his broken family in Germany – the family he left behind to go back to Turkey. He should no longer be able not to know who Arda was. In his much-praised debut novel, Necati Öziri creates the story of a family in which the mother, daughter and son all attempt to overcome losses and – even without passports – to find their own place in Germany. Bassam Ghazi works with Cologne residents to create a fast-paced evening about parting, longing, migration and families.