Reading with Selim Özdoğan

29 October 2026

Doors open at 4.30 pm
The event starts promptly at 5.00 pm

Selim Özdoğan presents his novel "Ihr kriegt uns hier nicht raus" – the story of a Kurdish-Turkish family who, of all places, move into a squatted house in Cologne in the early 1980s. Between a building site and a disco, general meetings and the struggle for housing, a community emerges that, strictly speaking, ought not to exist. Musician Dila Yavuz performs key songs from the book and adds musical highlights on the piano, blending literature and sound into a unified experience. An evening exploring origins, resistance, music and solidarity – a ‘home’ novel of a very special kind: vividly evocative, warm-hearted, masterful.

Followed by: an audience discussion. Moderator: Tobias Lachmann
Attendance is free of charge. 

The reading is part of the international conference ‘Dynamics of (De-)Industrialisation: Linguistic and Cultural Studies Perspectives’