German guest worker literature has responded to the traumatic and the tragic elements of postmigrant life with the comical and the absurd since the 1980s. This essay examines tragi-comic literary strategies in the writings of Mely Kiyak and other first and second-generation German-Turkish authors, which challenge homogenous narratives of nationhood and offer coping mechanisms for the pervasive presence of xenophobia. In these texts, affects (anger, fear, grief, but also affection) surface not as private emotions, but as socially organized catalysts for literary intervention, and as markers of kinship or exclusion. The dialogical nature of comedy (anticipating and relying on the reaction of the readership) promotes demarginalization and affective identification while mitigating tragic affect. This is true for Kiyak’s novel, Herr Kiyak dachte, jetzt fängt der schöne Teil des Lebens an (2013), as well as the transcultural performance project Hate Poetry (2012–18), in which Mely Kiyak and other German Turks read anti-migrant letters to the editor in the style of a poetry slam. Situated between the tension of an assumed German ‘Aufnahmekultur’ (‘receiving culture’) and an expanded sense of German ‘Nationalkultur’ which includes what Homi Bhabha has termed ‘minoritarian subjects’, these expressions of migrant experience interweave the affective charge of comedy and tragedy as socially uplifting and yet subversive modes of dissent.

中文翻译：

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逆境大笑：喜剧与悲剧作为梅莉·基亚克作品中的情感策略

自 1980 年代以来，德国客工文学以滑稽和荒诞来回应移民后生活中的创伤性和悲剧性因素。本文考察了 Mely Kiyak 和其他第一代和第二代德国-土耳其作家作品中的悲喜剧文学策略，这些策略挑战了民族的同质叙事，并为普遍存在的仇外心理提供了应对机制。在这些文本中，情感（愤怒、恐惧、悲伤，还有感情）不是作为私人情感表现出来的，而是作为文学干预的社会组织催化剂，以及亲属关系或排斥的标志。喜剧的对话性质（预期并依赖于读者的反应）促进了去边缘化和情感认同，同时减轻了悲剧的影响。Kiyak 的小说 Herr Kiyak dachte 也是如此，jetzt fängt der schöne Teil des Lebens an (2013)，以及跨文化表演项目仇恨诗歌 (2012-18)，其中 Mely Kiyak 和其他德国土耳其人以诗歌大满贯的方式向编辑朗读反移民信件. 位于假定的德国“Aufnahmekultur”（“接受文化”）和德国“民族文化”（包括 Homi Bhabha 所说的“少数派主体”）之间的张力之间，这些移民经历的表达交织了喜剧和悲剧是社会上令人振奋但具有颠覆性的异议模式。