Transterritorialized Literature: Migrant Women Writers in Intercultural Germany

In my paper I will argue that many European writers should no longer be defined as representatives of a monocultural national literature, since both their literary production and their own lives are a clear testimony of a permanent and rich intercultural dialogue between their own culture and the culture of their host land or society. My focus will be on three German-speaking writers of various nationalities and different languages of origin immersed in completely different exile or migration processes to Germany or German-speaking countries. I will analyse, how all three writers are entangled in different identity processes which is reflected in their literature: The Turkish writer Emine Sevgi Özdamar left her home country and adapted to a western culture characterized by completely different values and traditions as her home country, Irene Brezna form Czecholslovakia, who had left her country in 1968 due mainly to political prosecutions had to adjust to an exilic identity. Finally, Yoko Tawada from Japan left her home country freely but continues to write in both her new language and her native tongue. These writers make us realize that literature cannot be further understood as an art specifically linked to any concrete geographical territory but must be understood as an unterritorialised or transterritorialized literature.