A multilayered and rhythmic debut novel about her life as a Black
German woman living in Berlin and New York during the chaos of the 2016
U.S. presidential election from playwright Olivia Wenzel.
A young woman attends a play about the fall of the Berlin Wall--and
realizes she is the only Black person in the audience.
She and her boyfriend are hanging out by a lake outside Berlin--and four
neo-Nazis show up.
In New York, she is having sex with a stranger on the night of the 2016
presidential election--and wakes up to panicked texts from her friends
in Germany about Donald Trump's unlikely victory.
Engaging in a witty Q&A with herself--or is it her alter ego?--she takes
stock of our rapidly changing times, sometimes angry, sometimes amused,
sometimes afraid, and always passionate. And she tells the story of her
family: Her mother, a punk in former East Germany who never had the
freedom she dreamed of. Her Angolan father, who returned to his home
country before she was born to start a second family. Her grandmother,
whose life of obedience to party principles brought her prosperity and
security but not happiness. And her twin brother, who took his own life
at the age of nineteen.
Heart-rending, opinionated, and wry, Olivia Wenzel's remarkable debut
novel is a clear-sighted and polyphonic investigation into origins and
belonging, the roles society wants to force us into and why we need to
resist them, and the freedoms and fears that being the odd one out
brings.
