The Goethe-Institut in Lagos invites you to join a conversation between Nigerian writer, Chika Unigwe, and German writer and literary critic, Ijoma Mangold, ot discuss his memoir, The German Crocodile (DAS Editions 2021), which was recently translated into the English by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp.
Mangold’s memoir allows insight into his experience of growing up in Heidelberg – a small German town – in the 1970s. His Nigerian father came to Germany to train in paediatric surgery but returned before Ijoma was old enough to remember him. He was raised singlehandedly by his German mother. His father reappearance 22 years later, forces Ijoma to face an unknown culture, one he grew up suspicious of, and to come to terms with a new complex family history.
By telling his story, with all its’ dramatic twists and turns, he explores a number of essential questions: How does a boy cope with an absent father? What was it like to grow up ‘bi-racial’? Was he an opportunist, a master adaptor, who had over-assimilated? What is the relationship between race and class? And what is more unusual in Germany: being black or having a passion for Thomas Mann and Richard Wagner?
The event takes place in English on
Zoom. To register,
please click here.
The 25 participants who log in first, will receive an e-copy of the memoirs!
© Christian Werner
ABOUT IJOMA MANGOLD:
Ijoma Mangold born in Heidelberg in 1971 and studied Literature and in Munich and Bologna. After working for the newspapers "Berliner Zeitung" and "Süddeutsche Zeitung", he moved to "Die Zeit" in 2009, where he was literary editor in chief from 2013 to 2018. He is now "Die Zeit’s" cultural-political correspondent and one of four literary critics on the SWR TV show "Lesenswert". Ijoma is regularly on the jury of major prizes for contemporary German literature. A recipient of the Berlin Prize for Literary Criticism, he has also held visiting professorships at the University of Göttingen, Germany and at the University of Saint Louis, USA. Ijoma lives in Berlin.
© Victor Ehikamenor
ABOUT CHIKA UNIGWE:
Chika Unigwe is a Nigerian-born award-winning Igbo author who writes in English and Dutch. Her first novel,
De Feniks, was published in Dutch (2005) and is the first book of fiction written by a Flemish author of African origin. Her second novel,
Fata Morgana, was published in Dutch (2008) and subsequently released in English as
On Black Sisters' Street winning the 2012 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, Africa's largest literary prize. Chika is Professor of creative writing at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia and also writes a weekly column for Nigeria’s Daily Trust.
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