{"id":62827,"date":"2022-01-20T18:40:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T18:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62827"},"modified":"2022-02-13T03:51:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T03:51:00","slug":"ijoma-mangold-i-was-a-wagner-fan-already-at-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62827","title":{"rendered":"Ijoma Mangold: “I was a Wagner fan already at 15”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ijoma Mangold: “I was a Wagner fan already at 15”<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Exberliner<\/a>
\nBerlin, Germany
\n2022-01-06<\/p>\n

Alexander Wells<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nPhoto: Christian Werner<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Ijoma Mangold<\/a> is a man who speaks his mind. One of Germany\u2019s<\/a> top literary critics, he currently lives in Berlin<\/a> as the culture and politics correspondent for Die Zeit<\/em>, while featuring regularly on German television and on literary prize juries. Late last year, DAS Editions<\/a> published his memoir about growing up biracial in 1970s Heidelberg<\/a>, The German Crocodile<\/em><\/a>, in an award-winning English translation by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp<\/a>. This compelling work covers Mangold\u2019s relationship with his single mother, his burgeoning passion for German literature, the belated appearance of his father and formative visits he made to both Nigeria<\/a> and the USA<\/a>. The narrative is shaped throughout by Mangold\u2019s subtle literary touch, his understated wit \u2013 and a fierce intellectual independence.<\/p>\n

What led you to write a book about your youth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The catalyst was the death of my mother in 2010. That triggered a lot of beautiful, even idyllic memories of my childhood, including ones I didn\u2019t know I had. So I began writing about that. But then I realised that the reader would be wondering, with all this talk about a mother and child \u2013 where is the father? I would have to explain that. It became clear that this was the essential story of the book: what it means to grow up in a completely idyllic German setting when you look different, have an unusual first name, and don\u2019t have a father around. I also quickly realised I was bringing some tonalities and perspectives that aren\u2019t exactly typical for this genre. Which is to say that my book isn\u2019t one of accusation, or of trauma. On the contrary, I had an extraordinarily happy childhood. And I wouldn\u2019t say that I really experienced racism. Still, as a child, I had this growing consciousness of being different that I carried around with me…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ijoma Mangold: “I was a Wagner fan already at 15” Exberliner Berlin, Germany 2022-01-06 Alexander Wells Photo: Christian Werner Ijoma Mangold is a man who speaks his mind. One of Germany\u2019s top literary critics, he currently lives in Berlin as the culture and politics correspondent for Die Zeit, while featuring regularly on German television and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,28,13743,8],"tags":[3228,32813,32807,32812,2948,32805,32806,32815,32814],"class_list":["post-62827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-europe","category-interviews","category-media-archive","tag-afro-germans","tag-alexander-wells","tag-das-editions","tag-exberliner","tag-germany","tag-ijoma-alexander-mangold","tag-ijoma-mangold","tag-richard-wagner","tag-ruth-ahmedzai-kemp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62827","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=62827"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63037,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62827\/revisions\/63037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}