Jan İlhan Kızılhan this time tells the wounds of the human soul through a novel
Prof. Dr. Dr. Jan İlhan Kızılhan, who has worked for years with victims of war, displacement and genocide, and who took part in treating Yazidi women who survived ISIS's attacks on Shengal
RastinewsThe new book by Prof. Dr. Dr. Jan İlhan Kızılhan, who has worked for years with victims of war, displacement and genocide, and who took part in treating Yazidi women who survived ISIS's attacks on Shengal, "Der Geschmack von Nebel und Tee," has been published in Germany. This time, Kızılhan brings the traumas he has encountered in clinics for years not into a scientific study, but into the world of a novel.
Psychologist and trauma expert Jan İlhan Kızılhan's new novel "Der Geschmack von Nebel und Tee – Ein Roman zwischen den Welten" (The Taste of Fog and Tea – A Novel Between Worlds) was published by Europa Verlag.
The novel's story takes place at a psychosomatic clinic in the rural Black Forest, in southwestern Germany.
Professor Hans Faul heads the clinic. Most of the patients who come before Faul, a solitary and withdrawn doctor, arrive with complaints that classical medicine cannot easily define. One speaks of pains that move around the body, another says their "navel has fallen."
In fact, what is being described is far more than the pain itself.
What people have lived through, the society they come from, their beliefs, their fears and what happened to them in the past speak through their bodies.
The issue of transcultural psychiatry, which Kızılhan has worked on for years, enters the novel precisely at this point.
The arrival of Orhan Osman
The clinic's usual order changes when therapist Orhan Osman joins the team.
Osman is also a wounded man. He worked as a prison doctor in Turkey, was forced to witness torture, and has been unable to leave behind what he saw.
This past also shapes the relationship he builds with his patients. He can sense what they want to say where they fall silent. Because he himself carries a pain similar to that carried by the people before him.
A small incident that begins with the disappearance of 200 euros at the clinic quickly turns into a matter that makes everyone suspicious of one another. As the money is searched for, the stories, fears and prejudices people have kept hidden also come to light.
Throughout the novel, Kızılhan brings different lives together at the same clinic.
Some of these stories are Gül, who is trying to cope with her traumas; Hazal, who speaks of "djinn" sitting on her chest at night; Benjamin, a transgender man struggling for his identity under the pressure of his religious environment; and Hozan and Ahmet, who were once enemies.
It is music that brings Hozan and Ahmet closer together.
The world of the novel expands from migrants to war victims, to people of different beliefs and identities. What they have in common are their invisible wounds.
Behind the novel lies Kızılhan's own working life
It is not easy to read the book separately from the work Kızılhan has been doing for years.
Kızılhan, a psychologist, psychotherapist and orientalist, works primarily in the fields of trauma, transcultural psychiatry, migration, and the effects of war and genocide on human psychology.
Kızılhan became known in particular for his work with Yazidis following ISIS's attack on Shengal on August 3, 2014.
Thousands of Yazidis were killed or abducted in the attack. Women and girls who fell into ISIS's hands were subjected to systematic sexual violence and slavery.
Kızılhan became one of the figures working on the severe traumas experienced by women who survived captivity.
Starting in 2015, he took part in the treatment process for severely traumatized Yazidi women and children admitted to Germany by the state of Baden-Württemberg. He later continued his work in the Kurdistan Region as well.
He led the establishment of a psychotherapy institute in Duhok
One of the important pillars of Kızılhan's work was the Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychotraumatology established in Duhok.
Kızılhan and Prof. Martin Hautzinger of the University of Tübingen played a leading role in establishing the institute, which operates under the University of Duhok.
The institute began its educational activities in 2017.
The aim was not only to provide psychological support to people who survived ISIS's attacks. It also aimed to train psychotherapists in the Kurdistan Region, which faces the severe consequences of war and forced displacement.
In this way, an effort was made to open the way for patients to be treated by specialists who know their own languages, social structures and cultural codes.
Kızılhan's research on Yazidis continues today. One of his studies published in 2026 addressed sleep disorders, nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder seen among Yazidis who survived the ISIS genocide.
For this reason, "The Taste of Fog and Tea" is not, for Kızılhan, a fictional story set in an entirely unfamiliar world.
This time, through the possibilities of literature, he narrates the silence of the people who have sat before him for years, the pain they carry in their bodies, and the trauma that does not let go of a person even years after a war has ended.
Perhaps it is this question, above all, that lies at the center of the novel:
If what a person has experienced cannot be forgotten, is it possible to learn to live with it?
"Der Geschmack von Nebel und Tee – Ein Roman zwischen den Welten" was published by Europa Verlag on August 27, 2026. The book, published in German, is 400 pages long.