Katharina Oguntoye

Born in Zwickau, East Germany, to a German mother and a Nigerian father,[4] Katharina Oguntoye was raised in both Nigeria and Heidelberg, Germany.[2] She grew up with a younger brother and recalls their awareness of race and racism as they got older.[1] She describes growing up among other black people, unlike other Afro-Germans. Growing up with her father and other African relatives allowed her to see her Blackness in a positive way and she missed that when she returned to Germany at the age of nine. That move back was hard and she often describes internalized racism and how she has struggled. In a conversation with the other editors of the Showing Our Colors anthology she states: "Because of the time I spent in Africa I'm conscious of the parts of me which are alive there and simply don't exist here in Germany. Because nobody wants to get to know them here, especially not my friends. I think about why that is, and I believe that racist structures prevent us from talking about it. Furthermore, there's a lot of unacknowledged fear underlying this."[5] Oguntoye had much to bring to the conversation.[6]

Within Showing Our Colors, Oguntoye features her own poetry, much of which focuses on her own understanding of Afro-Germanness, her Afro-German subjectivity, and the relationship between Afro-German women and white German feminism. Poetry is very important to Oguntoye and she recalls a bad experience with poetry when she was young.[7]

• Aija Poikane-Daumke, African Diasporas: Afro-German Literature in the Context of the African American Experience. Münster: LIT Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3825896126.