Saliha Scheinhardt

Saliha Scheinhardt (born 23 April 1946) is a Turkish-German writer and lecturer. Born in Turkey, she emigrated to West Germany in 1967, where she completed her doctorate and became a university lecturer. She was the first Turkish migrant woman writer in the German language, and has written several novels about oppressed people and groups, particularly Turkish women migrants.

Early life, family and move to Germany Scheinhardt was born in Konya, Turkey, in 1946. She married a German man at age 17 against the wishes of her family, and emigrated with him to West Germany in 1967. She commenced a teaching degree in 1971 at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Göttingen and then worked at Hauptschulen as a teacher. In 1979, she took a role as a scientific assistant at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Neuss .

In 1992 Scheinhardt said that her son was a soldier in the German army. A common theme in her writing is minority women struggling to settle in a home, and many of her novels were influenced by casework she undertook during her doctoral studies. In 2006, Frauen, die sterben, ohne dass sie gelebt hätten was published in a Turkish language version (with some modifications) as .

In Sie zerrissen die Nacht (1993) (translating to "They demolished the night") she tells the story of a Kurdish woman and her family who try to find a home in Turkey and then Germany, suffering from violence and persecution in each place. Valerie Weinstein of the University of Nevada notes that it addresses issues such as "gender, power, narrative, economic relations, tourism, and the relationships between Germans and Turks". The two wrote to each other in the Turkish language, discussing and supporting each other's work, and Nesin (who could not read German) often tried to encourage Scheinhardt to write in her native language despite her reluctance to do so.

Awards and adaptations In 1985 she received the Offenbach Literature Prize, and in 1993 she received the Alfred-Müller-Felsenburg-Preis. In 1995 she received a medal from the city of Seligenstadt. Her book Frauen, die sterben, ohne dass sie gelebt hätten was the basis for the film Abschied vom falschen Paradies (1989) directed by Tevfik Başer. In 1991, following the release of the film, she republished the novel with an additional epilogue with a more hopeful outcome for the main character.

Selected works Frauen, die sterben, ohne dass sie gelebt hätten (1983) Drei Zypressen (1984) Und die Frauen weinten Blut (1985) Die religiöse Lage in der Türkei (1986) Träne für Träne werde ich heimzahlen: Kindheit in Anatolien (1987) Von der Erde bis zum Himmel Liebe (1988) Liebe, meine Gier, die mich friẞt (1992) Sie zerrissen die Nacht (1993) Die Stadt und das Mädchen (1993) Mondscheinspiele (1996) Lebensstürme (2000) Töchter des Euphrat (2005) Schmerzensklänge (2008) Wahnliebe (2015) Aziz Nesin Saliha Scheinhardt mektuplaşmaları : bozkır fırtınası (in Turkish, with Aziz Nesin, 2017)