The German weekly Die Zeit calls Mein Name ist Revolution one of the best novels of 2011, praising Ayata as a writer who can “like few others” describe “the unhappy joys of love,” especially when they are combined with depictions of the “politically precarious situation of the Kurds” born in Germany to migrant parents.

On Ayata's album Songs of Gastarbeiter [Songs of Guest Workers], Berlin's Tagespiegel writes: “The musical mix on this surprising, wild and terrific album is as hot as the mix of content: homesickness, longing, family dramas, anger at cold Almanya [Germany]” . . . but often conveyed with “wit and humor.”