Afrika and Alemania explores the representation of Blackness in German-speaking literary, autobiographical, and cinematic texts across two centuries. By examining how different groups of women with access to German culture have depicted Africa, Africans, and the African diaspora, the book challenges the assumption that all women will tell the same story. Focusing on Black women, non-Black women of colour, and white women, it investigates how these diverse voices engage with and represent Blackness within a society shaped by racial hierarchies. Part I analyses how Black, German-speaking women actively reshape and redefine Blackness in response to stereotypes upheld by white German society. Part II explores how non-Black women of colour navigate the complexities of othering while sometimes reproducing anti-Black stereotypes, while Part III discusses how white women’s projections of fantasies about Africa often erase Black voices and render them invisible. Offering a nuanced analysis of the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality, Afrika and Alemania provides a vital framework for understanding Blackness within contemporary scholarship and its broader social and cultural implications.

Table of Contents:
Contributors Introduction: Blackness, Germany, and Representation Lisabeth Hock, Priscilla Layne, and Michelle James Part I: The Black Diaspora and Self-Definition 1. “They Are the Next Generation”: An Interview with Sarah Blaßkiewitz Priscilla Layne and Lisabeth Hock 2. Between Autofiction and the Archive: On/Travelling Olivia Wenzel’s 1,000 Coils of Fear (2020), Touching Tale or World Refracts Nation Birgit Tautz 3. Postcolonial Ghana and the Legacy of Colonial Oppression in Amma Darko’s Novels Priscilla Layne Part II: Non-Black POC, Africa, and the African Diaspora 4. “Eingangstor zum Afrika” (Gateway to Africa): The Reconfigurations of Emily Ruete Kate Roy 5. The Survivor as “Implicated Subject” in Stefanie Zweig’s Autobiographical Africa Novels Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) and Nirgendwo war Heimat: Mein Leben auf zwei Kontinenten (Nowhere Was Home: My Life on Two Continents) Sarah Henneböhl 6. Making the Invisible Visible? Representations of Black Masculinity in Texts by Yoko Tawada Lisabeth Hock Part III: White Settler Colonialism and Its Legacies 7. German Cultural Superiority and Racial Hierarchy in Gabriele Reuter’s Glück und Geld David Tingey 8. The Black Slave Martyr Reimagined for Christian Missions in Colonial Africa: Maria Theresa Ledóchowska’s Zaïda Cindy Patey Brewer and Elizabeth Moye-Weaver 9. Rethinking the Periphery: Blackness in Eugenie Marlitt’s Im Schillingshof (1879) Beth Mullner 10. White Feminism and the Colonial Gaze: Frieda von Bülow’s Diaries from German East Africa Carola Daffner 11. Single White Female: Independent Women and Colonial Knowledge Production in German Colonial Fiction Maureen Gallagher 12. Colonial Propaganda Fiction: Else Steup’s Backfisch Novels from the 1930s Julia K. Gruber 13. Perspectives on Namibia by Contemporary White German-Speaking Women Authors Lorely French Index