Black Deutschland

En savoir plus sur le livre

Jed, a young, gay, black man fresh out of rehab and lacking prospects in Chicago, escapes to Berlin, a city of modernism and decadence that he idolizes. This paradise, born from tyranny and isolated by the Berlin Wall, is where he hopes to embody the black American expatriate he admires. Sober and nostalgic for the Weimar era of Isherwood and Auden, Jed arrives to chase boys and evade the complexities of being a black male in America. However, he soon realizes that personal and political histories are inescapable. The judgment from his cousin and her bourgeois German family, the temptation of white wine in a seedy bar, encounters with racist groups, and the haunting image of Rock Hudson in every white boy he desires remind him that the past lingers, even in Berlin. Amid the backdrop of Reagan and AIDS, in a city on the brink of change, he navigates adulthood among outcasts, expats, and artists. Occasionally, the city fulfills its promises, and he experiences moments of connection, such as when the boy he kisses surprisingly reciprocates. This intoxicating novel explores appetite, identity, and self-construction, portraying an outsider caught between a painful past and an uncertain future in Europe's most vibrant yet shadowy city.