ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will discuss how to explore the affective dimensions of contemporary literature and language, especially in translingual writing, and to search for possibilities to analyze these aspects. As affect is much more than only a result of writing, but rather part of the writing process itself, I will ask for the performativity of language in different types of texts by well-known German author Emine Sevgi Özdamar. Many of her texts deal intensively with questions of language, especially those of moving in and between languages. Word by word, they form a stage for translingualism and for the writing process itself. Özdamar’s literary reflections demonstrate first, that moving between languages is driven by affect as an encounter between bodies and words, thus creating the affective relationality of language and between languages, and second, that the affective and performative production of translingualism is closely linked to her concept of authorship.
