Wladimir Kaminer: A Russian Picaro Conquers Germany

Abstract

Wladimir Kaminer is currently one of Germany's most popular writers. His first book, Russendisko (2000), a collection of vignettes of Russian 6migre life in Berlin, turned him into an instant celebrity. Since then Kaminer has published seven more books, each of which landed on the Spiegel best-seller list.1 His works have sold over 1.2 million copies in Germany alone and have been translated into fifteen languages, including Russian and English.2 Kaminer is also doing a brisk business in audio versions of his books. In addition, he writes regular columns for a multitude of German newspapers and magazines, he runs a weekly radio show, and his Russian Disco at Caf6 Burger has become a legendary staple of Berlin's night life.3 Born in Moscow in 1967, Kaminer had no knowledge of the German language before he emigrated to what was still the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1990. After working at various odd jobs, including a stint in a theater, he began in 1998 to write in the language of his adopted homeland. His meteoric career as the shooting star of German literature raises several questions. How can we explain his extraordinary success with the German public? What is his national identity as a writer? Does he belong in the company of other successful translingual Russian writers, such as Vladimir Nabokov or Andrei Makine? Are his indefatigable graphomania and commercial success an index of literary greatness, or just the opposite? The question of Kaminer's popularity is intertwined with that of his national identity. As the title of his first book indicates, the topic of looms large in his literary self-fashioning and public persona. His latest book, I Am Worried, Mama (Ich mache mir Sorgen, Mama, 2004), features an assemblage of Matryoshka dolls on the cover, thus signaling to the potential buyer the work's Russianness from the outset in a conspicuous, if hackneyed, manner. Kaminer skillfully capitalizes on German cliches