"Stadt" and "Frauenbewegung"
by Gihad Abongelah
Hussain Al-Mozany

Hussain Al-Mozany was born in 1954 in Amarah/ Southern Iraq. He grew up in Baghdad and in 1978 he moved to Lebanon where he worked as a journalist. In 1980, he came to Münster, Germany where he studied Arabistik, Islamwissenschaft, Germanistik and Journalism. From 1991 until 1993, he lived in Cairo, Egypt, to do research for his stories and novels. He published numerous narratives and novels in Arabic, and translated German writers, among others Bachmann and Grass into Arabic. In 2003, he was awarded the Albert-von-Chamisso-Preis for his latest book Mansur, or The Scent of the Occident.

In his latest novel, Al-Mozany tackles the problem of political refugees from Iraq. Mansur is a young Iraqi soldier who deserts from the Iraqi army and flees his native country and comes to Germany equipped with a fake visa and an ancient certificate, which he uses to apply for German citizenship. Almost 1,000 years ago, Aischa, one of his ancestors married a crusader of Franconian origin. Mansur comes to Germany and claims his right to become a German citizen for he has German blood in him. He finds a very skeptical judge who is willing to hear his case. In this novel, Al-Mozany confronts the German judicial system, bureaucracy and society with its own definition of who is a German and who has the right to become one, but also describes the misery of everyday life in Iraq, but also in the asylum seekers’ home. His style

Books

• Der Marschländer (Glare Verlag, Frankfurt/M. 1999)
• Mansur oder der Duft des Abendlandes (Reclam, Leipzig 2002)

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