{"id":62816,"date":"2022-01-19T23:52:52","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T23:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62816"},"modified":"2022-02-14T01:31:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T01:31:05","slug":"the-german-crocodile-a-literary-memior-das-deutsche-krokodil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62816","title":{"rendered":"The German Crocodile: A Literary Memior (Das Deutsche Krokodil)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalbackbooks.com\/product\/german-crocodile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>The German Crocodile: A Literary Memior (Das Deutsche Krokodil)<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalbackbooks.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DAS Editions<\/a><br \/>\nNovember 2021 (originally published in 2017)<br \/>\n366 pages<br \/>\nHardcover 978-1838221508<br \/>\neBook ISBN : 978-1838221515<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/de.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ijoma_Mangold\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Ijoma Mangold<\/strong><\/a> (Translated into English by <a href=\"https:\/\/ruthahmedzaikemp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalbackbooks.com\/product\/german-crocodile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/31CfWKzuclL.jpg\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this compelling memoir of growing up different, Ijoma Mangold, today one of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Germany\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Germany&#8217;s<\/a> best literary critics, remembers his youth in 1970s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heidelberg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Heidelberg<\/a> and the new <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/States_of_Germany\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Federal Republic<\/a>, and momentous visits in early adulthood to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/United_States\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">USA<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nigeria\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nigeria<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_LXZp2QZJgI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>His own story is inextricably linked with that of his mother, a German from the eastern province of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Silesia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Silesia<\/a>, forced to escape as a refugee in the expulsions from 1944, and to start afresh in utter poverty in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/West_Germany\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Germany<\/a>. 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 &#8216;bi-racial&#8217; 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thomas_Mann\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Thomas Mann<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Wagner\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Richard Wagner<\/a>? Ijoma shares his story with its dramatic twists and turns, not forgetting the surprises he uncovers about himself along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this compelling memoir of growing up different, Ijoma Mangold, today one of Germany&#8217;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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,395,11,28,17],"tags":[3228,32807,2948,32805,32806,1691,32815,32814,33022],"class_list":["post-62816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-autobiography","category-books","category-europe","category-monographs","tag-afro-germans","tag-das-editions","tag-germany","tag-ijoma-alexander-mangold","tag-ijoma-mangold","tag-nigeria","tag-richard-wagner","tag-ruth-ahmedzai-kemp","tag-thomas-mann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62816"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63038,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62816\/revisions\/63038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}