“Staging Berlin: Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde ”

Abstract

This article examines the representation of Cold War Berlin in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s novel Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde (2003), paying particular attention to the unique role played by sound within this text. Specifically, it is argued that the Brecht and Eisler songs which are a constant companion to the novel’s narrator serve as a means of linking different city spaces to one another: East to West Berlin, and both parts of Berlin to Istanbul. In Özdamar’s text, this essay demonstrates, Berlin’s topography is spatially and aurally constituted and inclusive of the narrator’s plural geographical, political, and cultural attachments.