Behzad Karim Khani
Listen to full episode “06 - Conversation with Behzad Karim Khani” :
Behzad Karim Khani is an author whose explosive debut novel Hund, Wulf, Schakal (Dog, Wolf, Jackal) tells a story of violence on the streets of Berlin, and the lives of two immigrant brothers from Iran. It’s a book that elicited rave reviews such as this one in the Suddeutschezeitung: “Sentences you’d want to frame…simply a great work of literature.”
Behzad was a boy in Tehran when the Iran / Iraq war ended. With his family, he left and settled in Germany where his ethnicity marked him as an outsider. He grew up fast, fell in with gangs, and nearly went to prison for trafficking drugs. Things got better only when he moved to Berlin, got a job at a famous techno club, and became manager of the upscale restaurant next door where they welcomed guests like Quinten Tarantino and Karl Langerfeld. Three years later he opened a bar of his own and began trying to write movie scripts. Eventually one the scripts turned into a novel and in 2022 he published Hund, Wolf, Schakal and won a nomination for the Ingeborg Bachmann Award. In February, the book, which was adapted for the stage, premiered at the Maxim Gorki Theatre.
Behzad’s recommended reads:
Heinrich Böll
Peter Weiss
Christian Kracht
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