Books & Reading
Discover literature, memoir, scholarship, and community voices that deepen conversations about Black German histories, adoption, identity, and belonging.
Explore our growing reading list below. Each book spotlight includes a short description, related reading, and links to book and purchase information.
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Alice Hasters’s Anti Opfer: Making Room for Vulnerability
Published · April 30, 2026
German edition
Racism & Antiracism
Alice Hasters examines our discomfort with vulnerability and asks what recognizing harm and responsibility could mean for public life.
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Sharon Dodua Otoo’s So, in etwa, ist es geschehen: History on the Journey
Published · April 29, 2026
German edition
Literature & Arts · Black German History
Sharon Dodua Otoo’s new novel brings family remembrance and the pressures of the present together on a journey to the Baltic coast.
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Crystal A. Smith’s A Purpose for Every Thorn: Faith and Reflection
Published · March 7, 2026
English edition
Memoir & Life Writing
A Christian community reading selection on identity, forgiveness, and finding meaning through difficult seasons.
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Tupoka Ogette’s Trotzdem zuhause: A Life in Search of Home
Published · February 2026
German edition
Memoir & Life Writing · Racism & Antiracism · Black German History
Tupoka Ogette’s memoir brings childhood, motherhood, racism, and belonging into a personal account of making a home.
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Marion Kraft’s Weltenwechsel: Black German Lives Across Generations
Published · January 28, 2026
German edition
Literature & Arts · Black German History · Racism & Antiracism
Marion Kraft’s debut novel follows Julia from a childhood shaped by war, poverty, and racial exclusion toward a life of greater independence. The experiences of three generations of women open a Black German perspective on West Germany after 1945.
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Nnedimma Okoli’s Torn Between Homes: Migration, Motherhood, and Belonging
Published · December 20, 2025
English edition
Literature & Arts
Nnedimma Okoli’s debut novel follows a Nigerian mother in 1993 Mainz, opening conversations about Black family life, motherhood, migration, and the stories families preserve.
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Lieber Sohn oder So rettest du die Welt
Published · October 14, 2025
A letter to the next generation that places care and solidarity at the centre of social change.
Kjona · ISBN 9783910372542
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Lieben
Published · September 24, 2024
Roig reflects on love as a force connecting personal relationships, justice and collective life.
Hanser Berlin · ISBN 9783446279834
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Unlearn Patriarchy 2
Published · March 14, 2024
An edited collection of essays examining patriarchal habits and the possibilities of learning different ways to live.
Ullstein · ISBN 9783550202773
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Ngozi Okwuosa’s Maik und Malaika feiern das Yam-Erntefest
Published · 2024
German edition
Children’s Books
Maik and Malaika prepare a yam harvest celebration for their grandfather in Ngozi Okwuosa’s picture book about family, tradition, and gratitude.
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Alice Hasters’s Identitätskrise: Identity, Memory, and Social Change
Published · October 22, 2023
German edition
Racism & Antiracism · Black German History
Alice Hasters explores identity, historical responsibility, and the gap between society’s self-image and lived reality in Identitätskrise.
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Schwarz. Deutsch. Weiblich.: Warum Feminismus mehr als Geschlechtergerechtigkeit fordern muss
Published · August 31, 2023
Kelly connects Black women’s histories and personal experience with a critique of exclusion within feminism.
Piper · ISBN 9783492071147
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Das Ende der Ehe: Für eine Revolution der Liebe
Published · March 30, 2023
A feminist critique of marriage, economic dependence and the social rules that shape intimacy.
Ullstein
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Charles M. Huber’s Weltbühne Afrika: Africa, Sovereignty, and Global Relations
Published · 2023
German edition
Racism & Antiracism
Charles M. Huber combines personal experience with an examination of Africa’s relations with Europe and other global powers. He considers sovereignty, changing partnerships, and the narratives through which Africa is discussed outside the continent.
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Ngozi Okwuosa’s Maik und Malaika und das große Schiff aus Müll
Published · 2023
German edition
Children’s Books
Maik and Malaika’s river adventure becomes a story of creative play, reuse, and caring for the environment in this picture book by Ngozi Okwuosa.
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Mapping Black Europe: Monuments, Markers, Memories
Published · 2023
Black scholars and activists trace public memory, community histories and overlooked places across eight European capitals.
transcript · ISBN 9783837654134
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Adoption Across Race and Nation: Histories That Cross Borders
Published · November 2022
English edition
Adoption & Family Separation · Racism & Antiracism
Adoption Across Race and Nation: US Histories and Legacies brings together perspectives on adoption, racial power, family, and national belonging. Its chapters place individual…
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I AM MILLI: Ikonografien des Schwarzen Feminismus
Published · 2022
The exhibition catalogue brings Black women’s visual art and essays into conversation about self-representation and colonial ways of seeing.
Orlanda · ISBN 9783949545276
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Lena Whooo’s un-fulfilled: Identity, Freedom, and Life
Published · 2022
German edition
Literature & Arts
Lena Whooo brings poetry, short prose, and drawings together to explore identity, freedom, and the uneven terrain between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The collection draws on personal reflection and the process of finding an artistic voice.
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Ngozi Okwuosa’s Maik und Malaika: Der herbstliche Schuhsalat
Published · 2022
German edition
Children’s Books
A lost rain boot turns autumn play into a shared adventure for Maik and Malaika in this picture book by German-Nigerian author Ngozi Okwuosa.
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Ngozi Okwuosa’s Maik und Malaika: Die versteckte Weihnachtskrippe
Published · 2022
German edition
Children’s Books
A Christmas Eve adventure with Maik and Malaika, bringing diverse children and family traditions into German-language reading for young learners.
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Sisters and Souls 2: Inspirationen durch May Ayim
Published · 2021
A new generation of writers reflects on May Ayim’s continuing influence and Black community futures.
Orlanda · ISBN 9783944666938
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Rassismus: Strukturelle Probleme brauchen strukturelle Lösungen!
Published · 2021
An introduction to structural racism and the need for changes beyond individual attitudes.
Atrium · ISBN 9783855351145
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Why We Matter: Das Ende der Unterdrückung
Published · February 15, 2021
Roig draws on family experience to examine intersecting forms of oppression and imagine solidarity.
Aufbau · ISBN 9783351038472
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Ngozi Okwuosa’s Rapulu’s Rainbow Stars: Friendship and Belonging
Published · 2021
English edition
Children’s Books · Racism & Antiracism
Ngozi Okwuosa’s English-language picture book explores albinism, friendship, and belonging through Rapulu’s experience of exclusion and his friends’ response.
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Layla Zami’s Contemporary PerforMemory: Dancing with Memory
Published · December 2020
English edition
Literature & Arts
Layla Zami explores how dance carries historical memory, responds to trauma, and opens possibilities for diasporic futures.
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Un_Masking Difference: Literary Voices from Behind the Mask
Published · 2020
International literary voices consider masks, difference and the experience of the pandemic.
mikrotext · ISBN 9783948631116
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The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies: A Reference Resource
Published · April 2020
English edition
Childhood & Education
This four-volume encyclopedia introduces the concepts, debates, and research approaches that shape interdisciplinary childhood studies. Its entries span the social and cultural…
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The Comet – 150 Years W. E. B. Du Bois: Afrofuturism 2.0
Published · 2020
An anthology connecting Du Bois’s speculative fiction with contemporary Black visions of the future.
Orlanda · ISBN 9783944666631
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Alice Hasters on Everyday Racism: Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen aber wissen sollten
Published · September 23, 2019
German edition
Racism & Antiracism · Black German History · Memoir & Life Writing
Alice Hasters connects her experiences as a Black woman in Germany with a clear examination of everyday racism and antiracist responsibility.
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Schwarzer Feminismus: Grundlagentexte
Published · March 2019
Foundational Black feminist texts in German translation trace the connections between race, gender, class and political struggle.
Unrast · ISBN 9783897713178
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Judy Fambrough-Billingsley’s Too Brown to Keep: A Search for Family
Published · 2019
English edition
Memoir & Life Writing · Adoption & Family Separation · Black German History
Too Brown to Keep: A Search for Love, Forgiveness and Healing follows Judy Fambrough-Billingsley’s journey from childhood in Germany and adoption in the United States to a search…
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Marion Kraft’s Empowering Encounters with Audre Lorde: Memory and Resistance
Published · July 2, 2018
English and German editions
Black Feminism · Black German History · Literature & Arts
Drawing on a personal friendship, Marion Kraft considers Audre Lorde’s literary and political influence through essays, speeches, and an interview. The collection connects Lorde’s writing with Black feminist organizing across national borders.
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Millis Erwachen / Milli’s Awakening: Schwarze Frauen, Kunst und Widerstand
Published · 2018
The companion book to Kelly’s documentary shares the perspectives of eight Black women working in the arts in Germany.
Orlanda · ISBN 9783944666402
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International Adoption in North American Literature and Culture
Published · September 2017
English edition
Adoption & Family Separation · Literature & Arts
How are international adoption and adoptee lives represented in literature and culture? This edited collection brings literary and cultural analysis to questions of family,…
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Black Anthology: Adult Adoptees Claim Their Space (The AN-YA Project)
Published · November 1, 2016
English edition
Memoir & Life Writing · Adoption & Family Separation · Racism & Antiracism
Black adult adoptees share distinct stories of identity, family, racism, and belonging. Includes Rosemarie Peña’s essay on Black German reunification and diaspora.
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Natasha A. Kelly’s Afrokultur: Black Knowledge Across Generations
Published · 2016
German edition
Black German History · Black Feminism · Racism & Antiracism
Natasha A. Kelly places Black German history and intellectual life in a global conversation through the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, Audre Lorde, and May Ayim. She examines the conditions under which Black knowledge is recognized, excluded, and carried forward.
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SchwarzÖsterreich: Die Kinder afro-amerikanischer Besatzungssoldaten
Published · 2016
This illustrated exhibition catalogue combines archival research and interviews on Black Austrian children, family separation and adoption to the United States.
Löcker · ISBN 9783854098027
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Sisters and Souls: Inspirationen von May Ayim
Published · 2015
A substantial anthology of Black women’s writing about May Ayim’s influence, political memory and creative possibilities.
Orlanda · ISBN 9783944666211
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Marion Kraft’s Kinder der Befreiung: Black German Perspectives after 1945
Published · August 31, 2015
English and German editions
Black German History · Adoption & Family Separation · Memoir & Life Writing
Kinder der Befreiung: Transatlantische Erfahrungen und Perspektiven Schwarzer Deutscher der Nachkriegsgeneration brings together Black German perspectives on the postwar…
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Alexander G. Weheliye’s Habeas Viscus: Race, Flesh, and the Human
Published · August 1, 2014
English edition
Racism & Antiracism · Black Feminism
Alexander G. Weheliye examines how racial power shapes who is recognized as fully human. Drawing centrally on Hortense Spillers and Sylvia Wynter, he brings Black feminist thought into debates about bodies, political violence, and the possibilities of life beyond racial hierarchies.
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Homestory Deutschland: Black Biographies in Historical and in Present Times
Published · English edition announced May 2014; German exhibition catalogue first published 2006
A collective self-portrait of Black German history, told through biographies spanning three centuries.
edition assemblage / ISD · ISBN 9783942885669
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Nzitu Mawakha’s Daima: Images of Women of Colour in Germany
Published · 2013
English edition
Black Feminism · Literature & Arts · Black German History
Photographs and first-person texts bring Black women living and working in Germany into a collective portrait. Nzitu Mawakha’s black-and-white images show individuals, friendships, and community, while the women’s words return the gaze to the reader.
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Theodor Michael’s Deutsch sein und schwarz dazu: A Black German Life
Published · 2013
English and German editions
Memoir & Life Writing · Black German History · Racism & Antiracism
Theodor Michael traces a life spanning the Weimar Republic, Nazi persecution and forced labor, and postwar Germany. Family separation, work in entertainment, and his later engagement with Black German communities connect personal memory with a wider history.
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The Little Book of Big Visions: Art and the Worlds We Can Imagine
Published · September 2012
English edition
Literature & Arts · Black Feminism
The Little Book of Big Visions: How to Be an Artist and Revolutionize the World gathers perspectives on Black artistic practice and the possibilities that art can open. Edited by…
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Tina Campt’s Image Matters: Family Photographs and Belonging
Published · March 2012
English edition
Black German History · Literature & Arts
What can a family photograph tell us beyond what first meets the eye? Image Matters: Archive, Photography, and the African Diaspora in Europe examines photographs of Black German families and portraits of West Indian migrants in B
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Peggy Piesche’s Euer Schweigen schützt euch nicht: Black Women’s Organizing in Germany
Published · 2012
German edition
Black Feminism · Black German History
Peggy Piesche brings writing by Audre Lorde together with the perspectives of Black women engaged in organizing in Germany. Essays, poetry, recollections, and dialogue trace the relationships through which a movement found language, community, and political force.
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Fatima El-Tayeb’s European Others: Belonging from Below
Published · June 22, 2011
English edition
Racism & Antiracism · Black Feminism
In European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe, Fatima El-Tayeb examines how racialized communities challenge narrow ideas of who belongs in Europe. Music, performance, activism, gender, and sexuality become routes
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Noah Sow’s Deutschland Schwarz Weiß: Understanding Everyday Racism
Published · 2008
German edition
Racism & Antiracism
Deutschland Schwarz Weiß: Der alltägliche Rassismus examines how racism operates through everyday language, media, and assumptions about Germany. Noah Sow combines direct analysis and humor to make familiar practices available for
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Afroism: Zur Situation einer ethnischen Minderheit in Deutschland
Published · 2008
An early study of Black identity and the situation of an ethnic minority in Germany.
VDM · ISBN 9783639041354
Book / publisher information →
Marie Nejar’s Autobiography: Childhood and Survival in Hamburg
Published · 2007
German edition
Memoir & Life Writing · Black German History · Literature & Arts
Marie Nejar remembers her childhood in Hamburg-St. Pauli during Nazi rule and her later career as the singer Leila Negra. Her account brings survival, relationships, performance, and the continuing pressures of racial stereotyping into view.
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Charles M. Huber’s Ein Niederbayer im Senegal: A Life Across Two Worlds
Published · 2004
German edition
Memoir & Life Writing · Black German History
Charles M. Huber recounts his Black German childhood in Lower Bavaria and his relationship to his Senegalese heritage. The memoir approaches identity through family, place, and the experience of growing up across cultural expectations.
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Tina Campt’s Other Germans: Race, Memory, and Life Stories
Published · 2004
English edition
Black German History · Racism & Antiracism
In Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich, Tina Campt brings historical analysis into conversation with the recollections of two Black Germans who lived through National Social
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Yara-Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria’s Zwischen Fürsorge und Ausgrenzung: Black German Childhood after 1945
Published · 2002
German edition
Black German History · Adoption & Family Separation · Childhood & Education
This study examines how postwar German institutions and welfare organizations approached children born to German mothers and Black American soldiers. It follows the tensions between care, exclusion, institutional separation, and efforts at integration.
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Hans Massaquoi’s Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany
Published · 1999
English edition
Memoir & Life Writing · Black German History · Racism & Antiracism
Hans Massaquoi recalls growing up in Hamburg as the son of a German mother and a Liberian father. His account follows childhood aspirations, racial exclusion, and the struggle to survive Nazi rule and war.
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Ika Hügel-Marshall’s Invisible Woman / Daheim unterwegs: A Black German Life
Published · 1998
English and German editions
Memoir & Life Writing · Black German History · Adoption & Family Separation · Racism & Antiracism
Ika Hügel-Marshall’s memoir traces her childhood in postwar Germany, separation from her family into institutional care, and the racism she faced growing up. Her later connections with Black German communities and her search for her African American father open new possibilities for family and belonging.
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Marion Kraft’s The African Continuum: Black Women’s Literary Traditions
Published · 1995
English edition
Black Feminism · Literature & Arts
This study examines how African cultural traditions and storytelling practices shape contemporary African American women’s writing. Kraft considers narrative voice, relationships among women, inherited stories, and literary forms through a Black feminist approach.
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Schwarze Frauen der Welt: Marion Kraft on Europe and Migration
Published · 1994
German edition
Black Feminism · Racism & Antiracism
Co-edited by Marion Kraft and Rukhsana Shamim Ashraf-Khan, this anthology brings Black women’s perspectives into discussions of Europe and migration. Kraft’s contribution addresses feminism and women of African descent in Europe.
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Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out
Published · December 4, 1991
English and German editions
Black Feminism · Black German History · Memoir & Life Writing
History, poetry, interviews, and personal testimony meet in Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, the English translation of Farbe bekennen. The collection places Black women’s voices at the center of German history and
Read the book spotlight →Silke Hackenesch’s A Child from Abroad: Forthcoming Adoption History
Forthcoming · 2027
English edition
Adoption & Family Separation · Black German History
Silke Hackenesch examines the adoption of Black German children by African American families after the Second World War. The forthcoming book draws on archives, Black newspapers, military correspondence, and personal testimony to place adoption within Cold War and civil rights history.
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