Escape from the Abattoir
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In a small peripheral town in Germany, dominated by a solitary poultry slaughterhouse, the novel "Feathers Everywhere" unfolds. Written by Nava Ebrahimi and published by Luchterhand Literaturverlag, the 352-page book has been nominated for the prestigious German Book Prize.
The story is a vivid panorama of contemporary life, intertwining the diverging fates of several characters within the poultry slaughterhouse's catchment area. Among them, we find a visually impaired Afghan poet, a worker on the chicken disassembly line, a nostalgic manager, a Polish housekeeper, and an ambitious automation engineer.
Nassim, the Afghan poet, carries heavy burdens on his heart due to personal and societal issues. His poems are so powerful that they have caught the attention of the novel's author, Roshi. In an act of solidarity, Roshi agrees to help Nassim translate his poems.
Sonja, a single mother, is another character struggling with her own challenges. She inspects chicken breasts for quality-damaging woody breast syndrome on the conveyor belt in the poultry slaughterhouse.
The novel tackles a wide range of themes, including Taliban rule, a Polish enclave in the Emsland during the first post-war years, everyday racism, transgenerational traumas, adolescent mobbing terror, hierarchical orders, and the consequences of carnivorous desires.
The chickens in the novel are also central to the narrative. They are fed into the economic metabolism cycle of global white meat consumption without any fault of their own. In the novel's climax, the chickens are loose, driven by an involuntary impulse of freedom, they scatter to escape their insoluble problems. This scene represents the "Wooden Breast," one of the leitmotifs of the novel, symbolising the revenge of the chickens on profit-driven overproduction.
The ending of the novel is a poignant and unbridled form of world flight, offering a thought-provoking conclusion to the battered personnel in the novel.
Nava Ebrahimi, born in Teheran in 1978, is one of the important voices in German-language literature. Her novel "Feathers Everywhere" is one of the most beautiful novels of the year, showcasing her unique storytelling abilities and her ability to tackle complex themes with sensitivity and depth.
In addition to her novel, "Feathers Everywhere" includes a real poem by the Afghan poet Zia Ghassemi about the homeless wanderings of today's Boat People on the continent of sorrow.
Roshi, the author of the novel, wonders how the figures and fictions created in her head are increasingly merging with reality, making the imagined world feel more real than her actual life. This reflection underscores the powerful impact of literature and the connections it can forge between people from different backgrounds and experiences.
In a recent appeal, Nava Ebrahimi opened the Bachmann Prize reading competition in Klagenfurt, urging writers not to succumb to the pull of inevitability and to create the present and act on what is still to come. This call to action reflects the novel's themes of resilience, hope, and the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity.
"Feathers Everywhere" is available for purchase at a price of 24 Euro. It is a must-read for anyone seeking a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant exploration of contemporary life.
