The German Crocodile: A literary memoir

In this compelling memoir of growing up different, Ijoma Mangold, today one of Germany's best literary critics, remembers his youth in 1970s Heidelberg and the new Federal Republic, and momentous visits in early adulthood to the USA and Nigeria. His own story is inextricably linked with that of his mother, a German from the eastern province of Silesia, forced to escape as a refugee in the expulsions from 1944, and to start afresh in utter poverty in West Germany. His Nigerian father came to Germany to train in pediatric surgery but returned before Ijoma was old enough to remember him. His reappearance on the scene forces a crash collision with an unknown culture, one he grew up suspicious of, and a new complex family history to come to terms with. Mangold explores many existential questions in this lively narrative; How does a boy cope with an absent father? What was it like to grow up 'bi-racial' in the Federal Republic? Was he an opportunist, a master adaptor who had over-assimilated? What is the relationship between race and class? And what is more unusual in Germany: having dark skin or a passion for Thomas Mann and Richard Wagner? Ijoma shares his story with its dramatic twists and turns, not forgetting the surprises he uncovers about himself along the way.

Table of Contents:
PART I The Boy Silesia PART II Tenno Drama Club Prussian in Spirit PART III African Americans Nigeria All in Vain Obama PART IV Mama's Death Self-doubt Family

About the Author :
Ijoma Alexander Mangold was born in Heidelberg in 1971. He studied literature and philosophy in Munich and Bologna. After working for the newspapers Berliner Zeitung and Suddeutsche Zeitung, he moved to Germany's prestigious weekly, Die Zeit in 2009, where he was the chief literary critic from 2013- 2018. He continues there as the paper's cultural-political correspondent. Ijoma is one of four critics for the SWR television programme, Lesenswert and lives in Berlin.

Review :
"Written without anger or hectoring but with grace and humour, it is the true-life story of a gifted man who happens to be Nigerian-German growing up post-war in a conservative country which throws many challenges – and opportunities - in his path. It is that very German genre, the bildungsroman, both a moving personal history and an affectionate portrait of contemporary Germany. I loved it - and the style, autobiography told in the third person, enables the reader to be both insider and outsider, reflecting the experience of its remarkable author Ijoma Mangold.” Rosie Goldsmith, Journalist and Director of the European Literature Network - “The German Crocodile is a delight to read. Not only because it is eloquently, thoughtfully and often funnily written, but also because it is honestly written. In an era where writings around race, identity and belonging are often visibly geared towards forwarding one ideological agenda or the other, The German Crocodile makes for refreshing reading by exploring these issues in a manner that does not appear calculated. Mangold's combination of thoughtfulness, wit, nuance and lack of calculation is a much needed one for our times.” Dr Remi Adekoya, Author of Biracial Britain.- “This is about one man’s journey to his roots. It is also a book about memory: the limits and the unreliability of it. Things Mangold thought he knew to be irrefutable facts eventually turn out not to be so at all. Above all, this is a touching and beautiful exploration of what it means to both belong and not belong in spaces that claim you and those that you claim” Chika Unigwe, Award winning Nigerian writer and Professor of creative writing at Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, Georgia.- “A beautifully written, rueful account of growing up not Nigerian enough for his well-meaning German neighbours.” Philip Hensher, The Spectator