"A Guest Ling in the Guest Room" To the Work of Jose F.A. Oliver

Since his debut 30 years ago Jose F.A. Oliver (born 1961) has published numerous volumes of poetry and three CDs with read and sung poems and two collections of essays. In his lyric and prose texts he reflects upon his relationship with the German and the Spanish language, the question of identity, and he compares the Black Forest to Andalusia. For Jose F.A. Oliver his relationship to the German and the Spanish language are "two distinct conditions, there are two different feelings and thoughts and it would be comparable to the question : Whom do you love more, your mother or your father ?" In this article, his 2015 book of essays Fremdenzimmer and his 2016 essay Wenn ich einst tot... 1. Entwurf. 1. Tristolog are analised regarding the questions of language, tradition and cultural spaces and considering how these issues contribute to generating identity.