Jad Turjman: Last book published posthumously
Turjman fled from Syria to Austria in 2015. In his seven years here he established himself: he traveled through the country as a “refugee you trust” with a comedy program, he appeared in schools against racism, spoke at the Salzburg Festival and published three books.
His last work, now published posthumously, is about this time in Austria – about arriving in a foreign country. “When the jasmine takes root” tells of the humiliation experienced by refugees in Austria. It shows the bizarre conditions in Austrian refugee homes. It shows the racist society of this country. Above all, however, it shows how a person still managed to gain a foothold here, to become happy and to find home in himself.
Readers feel “what it means to leave home”
Rays of hope for Turjman were those people who saw him as an ordinary fellow human being – such as the Schöchl family in Mattsee (Flachgau). At he rented an apartment. With a view of the Mattsee, he wrote his first book here.
“When I read this book, I felt what it means to leave home – to go somewhere where you neither understand the language nor the culture,” says Herbert Schöchl. “Nevertheless, he managed to gain a foothold here – through his charismatic art, through his art of tackling and reflecting on things. He processed that very, very nicely in this book – and also in the book that is coming now.”
It took a long time to “not feel like a stranger anymore”
The last book that has now been published lets the reader feel what it was like to live in Austria as Jad Turjman: “It took many years before I no longer felt like a stranger in Austria. I’ve never been a stranger, I’ve always known myself. But because I was seen as a stranger, I felt like one. […] I have [die Einheimischen], the situation and the new living conditions are also perceived as strange. But over the years I’ve learned not to let fear rule and to see the new, the foreign, as a valuable learning opportunity[…].”
Turjman wrote all of his books with the help of Doris Brandl – a retired teacher who lives a few kilometers from Mattsee in Upper Austria. You can learn from the book how to approach strangers, she says: “I think everyone can learn that and everyone should learn it. Because it’s definitely not innate. And the experiences that Jad has had actually speak to the fact that it is not innate. And that there is also some intolerance and racism in Austria – unfortunately.”
Last book by Jad Turjman published posthumously
Last book as a legacy
Jad Turjman had an accident while hiking in the mountains this July. His new book can be read as a legacy, according to his ex-landlady Christine Schöchl: “He was definitely a person who tried to connect cultures, to connect people. He did that very well too. That definitely has an effect.”
250 people came to Jad Turjman’s farewell. He was then buried in a small group at a Muslim burial in the family grave at the Mattsee Cemetery.