Rafik Schami: problematische Hermeneutik bei dem Werk eines interkulturellen Autors

In this paper, hermeneutic difficulties with Rafik Schami’s works, to which intercultural literary studies are confronted, will be brought to light. The treatment of the works of the Syrian German author by the critics is an example of the methodological inadequacies of the research on German literature of migration. The critics have often neglected his works in their singularity while looking for a common denominator to the literature of migra tion that would apply to multiple authors. In order to deal effectively with the works of an author who particularly cultivates his public image as a ›bridge builder between cultures‹ and to better understand Schami’s posture as an intercultural author, it seems that apply ing socio-poetical concepts in Bourdieu’s tradition can be very productive. The overlapping between biography, self-staging, autofiction, and fiction by Schami, which all are expressi ons of a complex identity, should therefore be given special attention. With Schami, inter culturality and its idealistic potential do not appear as a preexisting or an innate condition, but rather as an elaborate fictional construct for the analysis of which overarching catego ries and a generalized comparative approach appear to be insufficient; therefore a more de tailed analysis of certain aspects of interculturality in the works of Schami will be proposed.