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An anthology of poetry, short stories, and academic essays on Black German experience.

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Arriving In The Future: Stories of Home and Exile

Challenging stereotypes and clichés, pointing out injustices, fighting structural, institutional, and everyday racism - not because of curiosity, or choice but as necessity for plain survival - has always been the burden of the Black subject in Germany. There has equally always been a solid correlation between political activism and the production of literature as a means of raising awareness and empowerment.

Uncovering hidden chapters of activism and literature production, and understanding that there is no such thing as one Black German Community, but rather that there are and always have been different communities and individuals with different backgrounds and agendas, is key to understanding the complexity of Black German history, "community", its activism, and its literature.

Towards this end Arriving in the Future: Stories of Home and Exile is an English-language anthology of poetry, short stories, and academic essays on Black German experience written by twenty-six Black poets, writers, and artists from across the African Diaspora living in Germany. Through their words, the following pages attempt to portray some of the history of Black communities in Germany, and the poetry and creative writing of the present; which show in all their beauty the diversity of Black voices in the Germany of today.

Afro German, African, African American (including North, South, and Central America), Afro European - these terms are not mutually exclusive. Being Black in Germany, or being a Black German national is a wonderful banality that deserves recognition but requires neither charity nor exoticism.

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Adebisi Asoka Fozard-Esuruoso studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Columbia University. At Columbia she studied International Law, and Human Rights, under Professor Yasmine Ergas, Associate Director for The Center for the Study of Human Rights; and African American Literature and history under Professor Farah Griffin, head of the African American Studies Department. Asoka along with Philipp Khabo Koepsell founded the project Arriving in the Future.

Philipp Khabo Koepsell is a Berlin-based author and an internationally acclaimed spoken word performer of German and South African descent. With a clear focus on empowerment and negotiations of race and identity, he has been touring Europe and South Africa, giving joyful lessons on activism and performance.

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