Festival Neue Literatur Satellite Event
The Next Orbits features author Sharon Dodua Otoo and translator Dr. Jon Cho-Polizzi in a discussion of Otoo's novel
Ada's Room.
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.
Sharon Dodua Otoo is a novelist and political activist. Otoo won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2016 with the text "Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin". Her first novel
Adas Raum was published by S. Fischer Verlag in 2021 and has been translated into several languages, including two English language versions
Ada's Realm (MacLehose Press, 2023) and
Ada's Room (Riverhead Books, 2023). In collaboration with the Ruhrfestspiele, one of the oldest, largest and most renowned theatre festivals in Europe, she curates the Black German-language literature festival "Resonanzen". Sharon Dodua Otoo is currently the Honorary Fellow at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles.
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 highlight the 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.
This Festival Neue Literatur satellite event is co-sponsored and presented by Villa Aurora and the German Consulate General New York.
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