Susanne Witzgall: One common point in your texts in that both of you describe migration as an incomplete process, as a practice that is not completed with the arrival at the destination, but perhaps even only finds its starting point, its beginning, there. For instance, you Christian Kravagna, have written in your essay that many migrants develop a practice of travelling back and forth, almost like commuting, a process in which there is no definitive home that one can return to. And the protagonists in The Bridge of the Golden Horn often move back and forth between Turkey and Germany or commute within Istanbul between the European and the Asian sides. Do migrants develop more restless, mobile identities in general? This at least seems to pertain to yourself, Ms Özdamar. You have moved back and forth between Germany and Turkey several times.

Emine Sevgi Özdamar: In the 1970s, when I was working as a directorial assistant at the Volksbühne with Brecht’s student Benno Besson, I played with the idea of returning to Turkey after a year, that is, after I had finished studying – and for this reason I made drawings of the whole rehearsal processes. In Turkey, however, the killing and the military coup was continuing unabatedly. These were the unchanging circumstances. Then Besson asked me to come to Paris with him for a staging, and I went along. I didn’t speak any French, but since I could draw everything that happened on stage, he said: “You don’t need to. First just draw the whole rehearsal process and you can learn French along the way.” This third place helped me greatly, I didn’t have to choose between Germany and Turkey when I was there. It was like having a husband and a lover and thinking that you absolutely must choose between the two. But if you have a second lover, then you don’t have to make any decisions at all. What is there to decide then? That’s how it was for me with French and France. Later I even learned Spanish. At first I learned songs by heart, without understanding them, for instance Sara Montiel’s song Le vi por la calle pasó por mi lado. This is how I learned and it was like being at home. They say: “You no longer have a country, but the journey can also be a country.” And [Jean-Luc] Godard once...