Reading with Leyla Bektaş: How my family learned to speak

Migration and identity: the story of a family. An Alevi proverb says: "Keep to yourself what you have seen and do not talk about things you have not seen." When 29-year-old Alev realizes that her family, members of the oppressed Alevi minority in Turkey, lived by this principle for years, she decides to overcome the silence - and asks questions: Why did her father, a left-wing activist student, leave Turkey in the 1970s and migrate to Cologne? What led to the failure of her uncle Cem's successful textile company in Istanbul? Alev, who lives in Cologne and has always spent her summers with her Turkish family, now moves between cultures, between Germany and Turkey. She asks her relatives, collects their stories and searches for the hidden causes and experiences of her family. At the same time, the political situation in Turkey continues to escalate following the failed coup attempt in 2016. Leyla Bektaş spans the narrative thread across the different generations and takes us into the world of foreignness, migration and silence. Her language is clear and precise and creates the space to tell a story that has long been hidden. How my family learned to speak is a deeply moving testimony to the fact that even the unspeakable, the experiences, fears and traumas of a migrant family, can be put into words. The reading seeks a dialog: Following the book presentation, there will be space for questions and comments from the audience. About the author: Leyla Bektaș, born in 1988, studied Romance studies and then at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. Today she writes prose, essays and short stories. Her autobiographical debut novel Wie meine Familie das Sprechen lernte was published in 2024. Leyla Bektaș lives in Bremen. The reading is a cooperation between the Bad Oeynhausen public library, its support association and the AGORA - Gesellschaft für Literatur, Kunst und Kultur e.V. association.