Jackie Thomae and Prathap Nair
Interview with Jackie Thomae
By Prathap Nair
It is common knowledge that the GDR hosted thousands of Vietnamese contract workers, over and above students from Africa in its universities. But was it a utopia that did not see colour or have racial disparity all the same?
German author and journalist Jackie Thomae, who grew up in the GDR herself, attempts to answer that question in her immersive novel about two German- Senegalese young men called Brothers.
Brothers follows two men who couldn’t be more different if they tried. Yet the one thing that connects them is their long-lost father. Born to the same father but tethered to different destinies, due to their upbringing in different social conditions, Brothers documents the lives of Mick and Gabriel. The men grow up mature as men in the backdrop of a Germany undergoing a transition of its own – the reunification.
Thomae says it wasn’t her intention to write auto-fiction. Yet she drew liberally from her own life to tell the story of Mick and Gabriel. Here, in an interview with, she talks about how the nucleus of the novel originated from her own life story and yet how it took a different life on its own.
Your book follows Mick (Michael) and Gabriel, two men who grew up in DDR under different circumstances. You have said that you used your real life as an inspiration. What were your limitations in doing that?
It was important to me to write as authentically as possible while remaining within the realm of fiction. Choosing to tell the story of two men turned out to be a good decision for that reason. Of course, there are parallels to my own life, but because my protagonists are men and I am a woman, the book was never read as autofiction. Still, it naturally contains a number of situations and emotions that I know very well. Even though the characters are fictional the places and the history are real. When I get feedback from my readers, they recall the Berlin and the kind of people I described in the novel. I really liked that.
While writing the book, who came to you first - Mick or Gabriel or perhaps their father, Idris?
First, there was Mick — the man who experiences Berlin as the party capital, who thrives on his charm and social skills. Then came his half-brother Gabriel, who couldn’t be more different. And finally, their father, who – like my own – represents the many people from all over the world who studied in the former Eastern Bloc. Their stories aren’t particularly well known, and that’s one of the reasons why this short part of the book is so important to me.
Structurally, the book is split into two separate narratives. It's two novels in one, beautifully tied together in the end. Can you tell us your decision behind writing it like that?
Thank you – it really makes me happy every time I hear that the book’s structure works for the readers! Because that wasn’t clear from the start. I had originally planned to tell the two lives in alternating chapters. But then I realised that I wanted to stay with brother number one for longer, to understand him better. I preferred to portray the other brother as an adult man, with flashbacks to his childhood.
So we follow Mick from 1985 up to the year 2000. Afterwards in 2016, we meet Gabriel, whose successful life in London is beginning to fall apart. The first part has a slightly ironic narrative voice, which also fits the spirit of that time. The second part is told alternately by Gabriel and his wife, Fleur. It has a different tone, a different voice. Looking back, it turned out to be a good decision – though I wasn’t always so sure about it while writing.
Can you talk to us about navigating racial politics in your novel?
The two brothers, as different as they are, share one major thing: they don’t want to be defined by their background or the colour of their skin. At the same time, they don’t deny it either. They are the sons of an African father, but they grew up with their German mothers. That’s something entirely different from being part of an immigrant community. Those who grow up in such communities often live between two cultures, one at home and one outside. Mick and Gabriel know no other culture than the German one, precisely because that other part is absent.
They meet people who don’t care, people who celebrate it, and people who are bothered by it. One of the questions at the heart of this novel is how we become the people we are in the middle of our lives. I explored the decisions these characters make, how their personalities play into that, and how their upbringing shapes them.
With Brothers, I did everything I could to create a complex view of my characters — and the themes they encounter. Racism is only one of them. And even it takes many forms and shades. That’s something I wanted to convey too — it is, quite literally, not a black-and-white book.
How common is representation of people like Mick and Gabriel in contemporary German literature in your opinion?
Germany really has become much more diverse. You see people who don’t have typically German names or appearances everywhere now, even in literature. What matters to me, though, is that they’re not represented there only as people with a migration background or as people of colour, but simply as people. And if these people are writers, for example, they can tell you every story they want to, not only the one concerning their background. That’s when diversity truly begins.
In my last novel, I therefore decided to leave the question of ethnicity completely open for one of the main characters. I actually enjoyed that because it isn’t relevant to the story what my protagonist looks like.
Have you read any Indian authors in translation? If so, could you tell us your favourites?
Like so many people, I’ve read Arundhati Roy — The God of Small Things. Such a fascinating writer. Although I have to admit I haven’t yet started her new nonfiction book about her famous mother. I’ve also read Aravind Adiga and a fascinating crime novel by Vikram Swarup - Six Suspects. And now, for my flight to Delhi, I’ll bring Megha Majumdar's A Guardian and A Thief.
Brothers is expertly translated into English by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. An absorbing saga of two brothers, it alternates between the electrifying Berlin of the 90s and London’s upper class. Expertly told, bursting with relatable characters, it is a readable stylistic triumph that aesthetically paints the picture of two complex human beings. Thanks to Thomae’s prose and empathetic portrayal of Mick and Gabriel, the book’s emotional appeal is bound to resonate globally.
Jackie Thomae will be in India, travelling across various Goethe Institute locations, presenting her book Brothers to an Indian audience. She will visit Max Mueller Bhavan / Goethe-Institut New Delhi for Goethe Darbaar on 14.11.2025 and be a part of the Long Night of Literatures on 21.11.2025.
Jackie Thomae was born in Halle/Saale in 1972, grew up in Leipzig, and moved to Berlin in 1989, where she still lives today. She is a journalist, television writer and author. Thomae’s first book publication, the guidebook Eine Frau – Ein Buch (2008; tr: One Woman – One Book), written together with Heike Blümner, became a bestseller. Brüder (2019; tr: Brothers), Thomae’s second book, is a large-scale novel about the lives of two very different brothers that critics have often compared to Anglo-Saxon-style social novels. Die Zeit wrote, That the issue of skin color and racism is more complicated than social-justice warriors think, is shown in this observationally powerful social novel. Brüder was on the shortlist for the German Book Prize in 2019 and was awarded the Düsseldorf Literature Prize in 2020.