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half_book_and_co's review
4.0
In the 80s and early 90s Audre Lorde spent a lot of time in Berlin. She taught, connected people, forged friendships. A few decades later Heidi R. Lewis, a professor at Colorado College, started to take her students to Berlin for a course delving into the traces/ marks/ presences of historic Black radical traditions and their transnational links. In this context the book "In Audre's Footsteps. Transnational Kitchen Table Talk" (co-edited with Dana Maria Asbury and with Jazlyn Andrews) took shape.
The book consists of conversations of the editors with Germany-based BPoC activists, academics, organizers, artists, trainers, etc*. The kitchen table in the sub title refers, of course, to the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press (founded by Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith) but it also describes the feel of the conversations which feel less like formal interviews but like actual conversations and exchanges of ideas. The participants talk about (teaching) history, finding unlikely role models, creating new spaces, solidarity, exclusionary mechanisms in academia and elsewhere, emotions, friendships and so much more. And we, as readers, have the honour to take a seat an listen in.
In their last text in the book, Heidi R. Lewis and Sharon Dodua Otoo share a beautiful "love letter" to Katharina Oguntoye (one of the editors of Farbe bekennen/ Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out). they write: "This book is named In Audre's Footsteps to acknowledge the ways every contributor is indebted to and aims to honor the life and legacy of Audre Lorde. Here, though, we honor the ways we are also indebte to you and the work you've one to ensure we have this space to amplify our resistive and generative experiences as educators, artists, activists, and scholars who are connected personally and professionally in the struggle."
It makes so much sense that this book was published in the Witnessed series: a book series edited by Sharon Dodua Otoo which focusses on English language books by Black writers and artists which live or have lived in Germany. In Audre's Footsteps is a wonderful addition.
* The following people were interviewed: Katja Kinder, Peggy Piesche, Prof. Dr. Maisha M. Auma, Iris Rajanayagam, Josephine Apraku, Dr. Rebecca Brückmann, Jamile da Silva e Silva, Melody LaVerne Bettencourt, Mona El Omari, Dr. Céline Barry.
The book consists of conversations of the editors with Germany-based BPoC activists, academics, organizers, artists, trainers, etc*. The kitchen table in the sub title refers, of course, to the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press (founded by Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith) but it also describes the feel of the conversations which feel less like formal interviews but like actual conversations and exchanges of ideas. The participants talk about (teaching) history, finding unlikely role models, creating new spaces, solidarity, exclusionary mechanisms in academia and elsewhere, emotions, friendships and so much more. And we, as readers, have the honour to take a seat an listen in.
In their last text in the book, Heidi R. Lewis and Sharon Dodua Otoo share a beautiful "love letter" to Katharina Oguntoye (one of the editors of Farbe bekennen/ Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out). they write: "This book is named In Audre's Footsteps to acknowledge the ways every contributor is indebted to and aims to honor the life and legacy of Audre Lorde. Here, though, we honor the ways we are also indebte to you and the work you've one to ensure we have this space to amplify our resistive and generative experiences as educators, artists, activists, and scholars who are connected personally and professionally in the struggle."
It makes so much sense that this book was published in the Witnessed series: a book series edited by Sharon Dodua Otoo which focusses on English language books by Black writers and artists which live or have lived in Germany. In Audre's Footsteps is a wonderful addition.
* The following people were interviewed: Katja Kinder, Peggy Piesche, Prof. Dr. Maisha M. Auma, Iris Rajanayagam, Josephine Apraku, Dr. Rebecca Brückmann, Jamile da Silva e Silva, Melody LaVerne Bettencourt, Mona El Omari, Dr. Céline Barry.
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