February 1, 2022
The daughter of a Black Angolan father and white East German mother, Wenzel's Berlin-based protagonist confronts neo-Nazis, finds herself the only Black person at a play about the Wall's fall, and ends up in New York on the night of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. All of which compels her to examine her story and her identity, which she does in Q&A format--fittingly, as Wenzel is a playwright. This debut novel was an award winner and multi-award nominee in Germany.
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 2, 2022
Wenzel debuts with a powerful portrait of a woman finding, losing, and rediscovering herself in 21st-century Germany. The daughter of a punk woman from the GDR and a man from Angola who returned there after her birth, the 30-something unnamed narrator is reeling from the death of her twin brother and from the constant questions and exhaustion she experiences as a German woman with Black skin. Her simple but affecting story is told through scattered memories and personal histories. Much is revealed through a long and captivating series of interviews between the narrator and an interlocutor, whose questions range from the simple (“Why do you chew your nails?”; “Is there something in your eye?”) to the unanswerable (“Why don’t you ever say your brother’s name?”). Wenzel has a knack for capturing feelings and moments of tension, whether as quotidian as a reunion with an old flame at a bar or as terrifying as an encounter with skinheads. Some of the extended and recurring metaphors, though—such as the narrator’s imagining her body as a vending machine on a train station platform—lessen the impact. Despite a few dragging moments, this is an exciting, confident debut. Agent: Markus Hoffmann, Regal, Hoffmann & Assoc.
May 1, 2022
A young woman probes her identity. German musician, performer, and playwright Wenzel makes an auspicious fiction debut with a formally unconventional novel, translated by Layne, consisting mostly of responses from a biracial, bisexual woman to a questioner whose identity remains a mystery--and may even be the protagonist herself. Fragmented revelations swirl into a narrative that bounds through place and time as the narrator reflects on racism, xenophobia, colonialism, capitalism, class--and her abiding sense of loss. She grew up in East Germany, the daughter of a rebellious, angry, erratic mother who often left her in the care of her staunchly German grandmother. Her father returned to his native Angola shortly after her birth, but her mother, refused an emigration permit, was forced to stay in a country she hated. The narrator's twin brother killed himself at 19. "All the men in my family are either dead or far away," she reflects. "And the women left behind are damaged." Anxious, depressed, often lonely, the narrator has been damaged by family trauma as well as by the "explicit racism" that victimized her and her brother: "smashed windows in our childhood bedrooms," taunting and malice from "classmates, parents and everyone who was generally a fan of Hitler's." "When I was a kid," she recalls, "there was nothing I wanted more than a cream. A wondrous ointment that I could put on before going to bed that would make me white overnight." As scenes of her life unfold, the narrator reveals encounters with neo-Nazis, threatening to all who are marginalized; a breakup with her Vietnamese girlfriend; her job at a market research call center; trips to Vietnam, New York, and North Carolina. "In the U.S., I'm Blacker than in Germany," she decides. A crucial question drives her: How have race, nationality, and "a Capitalist mentality" shaped the woman she has become? A prismatic novel, thoughtful and unsettling.
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June 1, 2022
The narrator of playwright and performer Wenzel's debut novel examines her past and future, at home in Berlin and abroad. Born to a white East German mother and an Angolan father, she lost her twin brother to suicide at age 19. She struggles with being a queer person of color in a majority-white country where Nazism and white supremacy remain ongoing threats. In the U.S. for the 2016 election, she finds comfort in the Black community while recognizing such community was forged into existence by centuries of violence. She considers her grandmother's and estranged mother's lives and lost dreams alongside their inability to understand her own experiences. Translated from German by Layne, the novel unfolds largely as a series of interviews between the narrator and herself, alongside vignettes of her life in Berlin and in transit. Through poetic descriptions, character studies, and a recurring image of a vending machine on a train platform, Wenzel's unique literary voice carries the reader through meditations on origins, grief, racial identity, love, and belonging.
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Starred review from May 1, 2022
DEBUT In her debut novel, Black German playwright Wenzel tackles big questions: race, gender, Germany, politics, suicide, the refugee crisis, terrorism, family dynamics, and love. The unnamed narrator interviews herself, with her answers creating an interior monologue that provides clues to her psychological and physical well-being. Having grown up in East Germany, she is close to her grandmother but estranged from her parents. Her punk activist mother was imprisoned for unspecified reasons, while her Angolan father returned to Africa before her birth to start and raise another family. The narrator's twin brother killed himself by jumping in front of a train when they were 19. The narrator describes what it is like to grow up a biracial, bisexual woman in Germany, experiencing racism not only from neo-Nazis but also from members of her own family. To cope with her insomnia and panic, she sees several psychologists, one of whom tells her he cannot help since he only deals with patients burdened by the past, not those trying to navigate the present. Eventually, she ends up in New York on the night of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. VERDICT An original, wise, and thought-provoking work probing current issues. Essential reading.--Jacqueline Snider
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.