From 1969 to 1976 he was chief editor of the Turkish Literary Magazine "Yeni Ufuklar" ("New Horizons").
In the following years he published poems and short stories dealing with Turkish and Kurdish immigrant culture in Germany.
[3] In 1986 the German WDR also produced and released a radio play written by Erdem, called Das Feuer wird nie erlöschen (The Fire Will Never Be Extinguished), which deals with the topic of Kurdish minorities living in Turkey.
Another one of his radio plays, Turkish Songs About The Exile has been honoured with the European Civis Media Prize.
He also founded the departments of Kurdish and Turkish Languages and Literature at the University of Cologne at which he has been teaching until today.