The Next Orbits: Sharon Dodua Otoo in Conversation

Join author Sharon Dodua Otoo and Dr. Jon Cho-Polizzi for a discussion of Otoo’s novel Ada’s Room [Adas Raum] as part of the 2024 edition of Festival Neue Literatur.

Ada’s Room is a century- and globe-spanning exploration of the stories, objects, and unanticipated exchanges that connect us all. Rooted in Black intersectional feminist tradition and melding contemporary German realism with Afrofuturism, it is one of the most challenging and rewarding German-language novels of the past decade. The author and her English translator will discuss the work, the author’s co-curation of the literary festival Resonanzen, as well as the two’s ongoing collaborations.

, born in London to Ghanaian parents, lives and works as a writer, curator, and political activist in Berlin. In 2020, she opened the Festival of German-Language Literature with a "Speech on Literature" entitled "Are Black People Allowed to Paint Flowers?" Her debut novel Adas Raum (2021) has been translated into several languages. Otoo is politically involved with the associations Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland e.V., Phoenix e.V., and ADEFRA e.V. In 2022, she curated the Black literature festival "Resonanzen" (Resonances) in cooperation with Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen.

Jon Cho-Polizzi is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was born and raised in Northern California and received his PhD in German and Medieval Studies from UC Berkeley after studying Literature, History, and Translation in Santa Cruz and Heidelberg. His literary translations highlightthe polyphony of contemporary German-language literature. Jon lives and works between Michigan, California, and Berlin. He was the winner of the 2024 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize.

Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut New York