Herkunft

Herkunft is a partly autobiographical book in which a first-person narrator writes about his origins and about what ’origin’ means. He arrived in Germany from Bosnia at fourteen and grew up in Heidelberg, learning the language and finding his place while his parents had to work below their qualifications. The book weaves together his family history, the Yugoslav wars, the story of his integration and the decline of his grandmother Kristina, who has dementia.

Memory is one of its central subjects. He also recalls his first love and his first friends, among them other migrants who met at a petrol station.