Olivia Wenzel

This novel follows a woman as she goes about her life in Berlin. She's struggling under the years of being a Black German woman, the cumulation of open racism and microaggressions (which are not that "micro" at all) wears on her, as does her brother's death to suicide. Her mother faced her own struggles, first as an openly punk girl in the DDR, then as the wife of an Angolan man who had to return to his country, leaving her to raise two Black children in a place that not only encountered very few non-white people, but where conformity was highly valued. As this unnamed woman thinks through her current relationship and remembers her past, she decides what form her future should take.

Told in short vignettes, this novel was easy to read, despite the way this format chopped up events and recounted them in pieces scattered across the novel. This is a format that I usually dislike as it feels lazy, like the author couldn't be bothered to write complete scenes, but it works for this novel, better than a more traditional format, allowing for breathing room in the more intense events. It also mirrored the protagonist's disorganized habits and how she is at an inflection point in her own life. There's a lot to think about in this book, which was longlisted for the German Book Prize.… (meer)

Eine junge schwarze Frau reflektiert als Ich-Erzählerin in diesem Buch ihr Leben. Rassismus, Weiblichkeit, Schwangerschaft, Tochtersein, Sexualität, viele Aspekte werden in einem ungewöhnlichen Schreibstil aufgegriffen. Ich mochte das Buch und habe es gern gelesen. Der Zorn der Hauptfigur war manchmal schwer auszuhalten, aber noch schwerer auszuhalten sind die Dinge, die diesen Zorn verursachen. Ich kann mir nicht ansatzweise vorstellen, wie es ist, als Kind beschimpft zu werden, sich bei jeder Busfahrt umzusehen, wer mit einem aussteigt. Das Buch verdeutlicht diese Gefühle und beschämt mich daher auch. Es ist aber keine Autobiografie, sondern als Roman konzipiert und spielt so verschiedene Lebens-Möglichkeiten durch. Mir gefiel der ungewöhnliche dialogische Stil.… (meer)