Ahmet Polat

In Neither here nor there, the half-Turkish, half-Dutch photographerAhmet Polat goes to Turkey in search of his roots. He reconstructs the journey his father undertook as a truck driver, attracted to the Netherlands in the 1970s in search of a better future. Polat realises how uncommon the situation was for his parents in the 1970s, who met in the only place of entertainment in a tiny village in the south of the Netherlands. He had seen her previously standing on a dike, where his truck had broken down earlier that day. In the nightclub, he approaches her in his broken German and they feel the spark between them. Not long afterwards, Diana's parents are sitting in an aeroplane for the first time in their lives, heading for Turkey, anxiously wondering whats in store for them. Given the situation, it is quite surprising that they see no reason for concern, and the language isn't a problem either. Without being able to exchange a word, there is an immediate mutual understanding: two hardworking families, labourers who, despite the differences in age, religion and origin, only want the best for their children. Ahmet Polat now realizes that all those years in which he had sought acceptance in life, he had been looking at the wrong people. In 1976, before he had even been born, both his grandfathers had taken care of that for him already. This book places the contemporary feelings and discussions concerning labour migration, cultural differences, minorities and identity in an original and refreshing light.