Hundesohn

Reading and discussion with Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç
Moderation: Lotta Mayer

This is a love story: it takes place in the summer in Adana, three thousand kilometers away from Berlin. Zeko lives in Berlin. Here he meets men in parks and cafés, on dating apps and in front of the mosque. But every time their lips touch, his thoughts are drawn back to Hassan, the boy next door in Adana, whom Dede, his grandfather, only ever calls "son of a dog". Zeko only knows the noisy neighborhood from the summer vacations. Then Dede dies. But Zeko can't forget his grandfather, who cut the worries out of old men's beards and sang in Arabic. And especially not Hassan. "Hundesohn" is a radical and poetic tale of love and desire. Of the euphoria and vulnerability, the fear and happiness of love: at the kitchen table, in other people's beds and in prayer. And in doing so, he measures our torn presence, across countries, languages and bodies. "Hundesohn" is Ozan Zakariya Keskinkılıç's first novel. Born in Hesse in 1989, he received his doctorate from Humboldt University in Berlin in 2025 with a thesis on Muslim existential arts in the face of anti-Muslim racism.

In cooperation with the German-Turkish Forum