Feridun Zaimoglu on Fifty Years of Turks in Germany, and Jewellery

You gotta love him, eh? Kiel's most famous literary type Feridun Zaimoglu gets all hot under the collar at Zeit Online - he loves Germany, he can't stand Germany, he loves Turks, he can't stand Turks. And then there's this:

I was angry back then (when he wrote Kanak Sprak). I still am. I don't want that anger to go away, that furore that I've ruined a lot of things with. I mean, I could say: Feridun, take off all that metal, all the tasteless oversized rings on your fingers. It's bad style. I do know the rules in the German culture business, all I'd have to do is take off my rings. I'm not considered a serious writer. (...) I love these rings. When they touch each other while I'm typing it sounds like the cows coming down from the pastures.

Please, Feridun, don't take off the rings. I may be the only person reminded of Guy Ritchie-style lovable London lads' signet rings, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who loves all that metal. And we have plenty of sensible writers already.

On a more serious note, Zaimoglu laments the lack of respect for what the first generation of Turkish immigrants achieved in Germany, while not holding back on young lads who can't spell the word "respect". All this comes after fifty years of immigration from Turkey - once the Berlin Wall was built it was a matter of months before West Germany needed extra labour and signed an agreement with Ankara.