Review of Bartholomäus Grill, “Africa!”, Settlers

It was a long time before the first push message came from a European media portal when the Swedish Academy announced the name of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature winner at the beginning of October. It seems as if the editorial offices were surprised that the favorite names they had already written are now outdated. Because the cultural departments must first know how to spell the name of the Tanzanian author Abd al-Razzaq Jarna (72).

“What do we already know about Africa?” Do the closing words in the new book of the German journalist Bartholomaus Grill (67). The sentence could serve as the catchphrase above this farce about the Nobel Prize, because African writers are not on the radar of local bookstores, after all, the highest literary prize to date has been awarded to old white men. One of these is now also a roaster, but it’s a proven African expert reporting almost half its life to “Die Zeit” and “Spiegel” from the unknown continent.