Translating Yunus Emre, Translating the Self, Translating Islam: Zafer Şenocak's Turkish-German Path to Modernity

The writer and public intellectual Zafer Şenocak (b. 1961 in Ankara) is well aware of the imbalances in today’s globalized literary markets. Mass migration is, however, bringing about processes of cultural crosspollination that challenge traditional ideas of center and periphery. If, with David Damrosch, we regard world literature as encompassing “all literary works that circulate beyond their culture of origin, either in translation or in their original language” (2003, 199), it can be argued that Turkish literature is increasingly playing such a role in Germany, where Turks currently form the largest ethnic minority (Statistisches Bundesamt 2018). As one-sided as the cultural exchanges between Germany and Turkey may appear, Şenocak’s own publications demonstrate that there is movement in both directions. He has written essays on Turkish and Ottoman literature, such as “Einen anderen Duft als den der Rose: Über türkische Volks- und Diwandichtung” (Another Scent than that of the Rose: On Turkish Folk and Divan Poetry, 1993), and he has translated the poetry of Pir Sultan Abdal (Şenocak 1988) and Yunus Emre (Yunus Emre 1986) into German. Moreover, his own literary and essayistic writing (in both German and Turkish) is inspired by authors and thinkers from both cultural spheres.