Leaving One's Comfort Zone - The Story of a Move to Italy

Book excerpt: “Any settlers in the family?” “You don’t look Turkish at all, are you an émigré?” “Where are you originally from?” From an early age, I started hearing these questions. Either in school, during a cab ride, in the office or in my new social circles. I face these questions right after we start chatting... and this happens often. I always expect it. “Gökhan, where are you from?” I evolved: my height, my features, my voice, my gestures, the way I think, and many more but the answer to this question has never changed: “My ancestors used to live in Greece. They were there for a few generations. With the convention concerning population exchange between Turkey and Greece, my ancestors moved here permanently.” What I kept hearing on the grapevine eventually became a solid truth. I came to grasp the fact that my ancestors lived in Drama, Ptolemaida and Eleftheroupoli in Greece. All this longing to flee from my homeland and desire to get to know other places would clearly relate to a genetic interpretation. However, I still couldn’t say it all fit. "Kutluer compares and contrasts his Turkish roots, his old social surroundings to his new encounters in Bergamo and Montenegro. Starting from the relief of “getting out,” he dwells with the deep sense of nostalgia, the inevitable feeling of exile and loneliness; yet knowing that going back is not always an option and it is not the same land that one goes back to. Echoing some Turkish-German literature like Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Güney Dal, Feridun Zaimoğlu he battles the layers of integration to a new environment in reflection to his feelings of what once was a home to its aftertaste." – Elif Naz, Editor