“ISSA” Reading

Mirrianne Mahn

“I know their stories so well that I sometimes believe that I have experienced them myself.“

Actually, Issa doesn’t want to go on this trip. Pregnant, she is on a plane to Douala driven by her mother who fears for the life of her daughter, who is about to give birth. In Cameroon, the land of her childhood, she is supposed to follow the healing path of the rituals under the eagle eyes of her grandmothers. But that’s not so easy when you’re too black in Frankfurt and too German in Buea. For Issa, the visit becomes a confrontation with her own family history and the certainty that both trauma and the unconditional will to live and love are hereditary. Mirrianne Mahn artfully interweaves the destinies of five women whose lives are separated by more than a century, yet connected by the lines of colonial exploitation and the pursuit of self-determination. A powerful and haunting debut.

Language: German