A German and a Syrian sit at a table and talk: about their lives, their experiences, their joys and worries. Carsten Schmidt is one, author and teacher, born in Rostock, grew up in the GDR. Yahya Alaous the other, a journalist from Syria, fled to Berlin with his family in 2015 to escape war and the threat of persecution. For six years, Alaous has described in his columns for the SZ under the title “My Life in Germany” what it’s like when you come to this foreign, not always hospitable and often difficult to read country. Alaous and Schmidt met and became friends. In their book they take stock, in dialogue, each for themselves and both together. With an open heart. What is integration, what is home, what do you leave behind when you leave? Just a little book, half German, half Arabic, and yet it contains a world. Our world.
Columnist Yahya Alaous on integration – culture
