Book | The way I want: My Life between mosque and miniskirt

Melda Akbas, born in 1991, will be graduating from high school in 2010. As deputy student representative at her school, she spends a lot of her spare time working for the district student committee of her area and the Turkish Community in Germany. In March 2009, her project “l.o.s.

– let’s organize somethin’” was awarded a prize by the Deutsche Bank and the “Germany – land of ideas” initiative.

"Of course I define freedom differently than young people without a migration background." Melda Akbas

Mavi Boncuk

So wie ich will: Mein Leben zwischen Moschee und Minirock | The way I want: My Life between mosque and miniskirt
by Melda Akbas

Published by C. Bertelsmann Verlag (24 May 2010)
in German | 224 pages

ISBN 357010043X | ISBN13: 9783570100431)

The impressive memoirs of an 18-year-old about life between Western values and a Turkish family tradition.

What is life in Germany like for a young woman with a migration background? She is 18, lives as a German-Turkish woman in Berlin, is nearing graduation, is active as a student, and her greatest wish is a life of self: Melda Akbas doubts that German public does not what it means to be a migrant child. Prejudice and a lack of defining features. Eloquent and confident she is continuing with snapshots. Your background: a family of conservative to cosmopolitan, a colorful mix of minds and attitudes. They even tried to strike a balance between respect for their Muslim roots and her determination to live independently in a peaceful world of many cultures and as a woman.

Melda Akbas tells us about her friends; about her family, with its mixture of strict traditionalists and convinced atheists; of her commitment to the cause of integration and what she, as a Muslim, comes up against in Germany; and she writes about her daily life in Berlin, where she is still regarded as a “foreigner” and often faces prejudice, although she was born in Germany and has grown up there. Sometimes she describes her everyday cares: homework, exams, future dreams, future angst, parent problems, clubbing and shopping.

With her book, the young writer has given us an authentic view of life of an immigrant family. The account of her life is a moving example of how integration really can work – and is at the same time a reminder that energy and perseverance, not to mention luck, are also part of it.