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  • Published 20041207
  • ISBN: 9780733314544
  • Extent: 268 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm)

EMRE ALWAYS RISES at five. His palliasse has to be slid beneath the couch so that Frau Losberg might use the tiny room through the day for her piecework sewing. Emre is sincerely grateful for this space. It is much more tolerable than the migrant hostel. His wife and daughter are still in the women’s quarters but he is quite determined that must end. This present sit­uation is only temporary, though he has been living in Frau Losberg’s front room for 10 weeks. An apartment – even if only two rooms – must be found somewhere. Adelaide, he has been told and he believes it, has many houses split up into flats sharing kitchen and bathroom space but they are at least preferable to the dormitories and those inedible meals at the hostel.

As soon as he escaped the hostel, Emre was able to drag his precious typewriter from the leather suitcase, which was all he was able to bring with him. Its keyboard is Hungarian but he can manage English on it. Early on, he typed out, on thick white paper, many repetitions of his calling card and then cut them carefully to size:

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