OSMAN GÖVERIM

the forty-four-year-old café owner, is an Offenbacher born and bred and a unique phenomenon. Not just because he is a socially engaged Star Wars fan who decorates his café near the market square with stills, masks, and figures from the films. And not just because he has a Hummer sitting in a garage next door that he drives at most 3,000 miles a year, most of them through mud and debris. On the side, he also finds time to save his city.
A little bit at least. The street where Göverim opened his “Nerd Cantina” about ten years ago had long been an eyesore. Stores changed all the time and many were shady in some way. Now Göverim is campaigning as part of an interest group for the improvement of the street. Neither at school nor in his career has Göverim ever felt disadvantaged by the fact that he is the grandson of Turkish immigrants, proud Istanbulites. In school he struggled more to cope with the fact that he didn’t like studying, and today it’s only when people give him funny looks if he orders a pork schnitzel and a beer that he’s reminded of his background.
Denise Peikert, journalist