Sharon Dodua Otoo – “My aim was to reach readers at an emotional level”

Ada’s Realm explores the displacement and enslavement of women, as well as the brutalities inflicted on them across different time periods and places. What was the trigger for the novel? 

The reason I wrote this novel was actually because I won a literature prize back in 2019 for a short story I wrote. The prize was completely unexpected because it was a German language award. German is a language I learned later in life; I learned it in school. So I was not at all expecting to receive this award. But when I did, I received a lot of media attention and finally got a literary agent. I was taken under the wing of a very prominent publishing house in Germany. I knew that this was my chance to expand on the short story that had won me the prize. Originally, the short story was going to be something like the first chapter of the novel or the last chapter of the novel. In the end, I needed to distance myself from the short story because it had become quite iconic, if that’s the right word; it had taken on a life of its own. There was a specific tone in the short story that was completely different from the one I was trying to strike in the novel. So, they became two separate works, but people who know both pieces will see the connections between them.

Ada is many women: a grieving mother in 15th-century Ghana; a mathematician in Victorian England; a Polish sex slave in a concentration camp in Germany. How did you approach the challenge of weaving together these diverse narratives to create a sense of continuum? Does this structure reflect the complexities of women’s lives?

I believe that everyone’s life has complexities, not specifically women’s lives. In societies where there is typically a dominant narrative, and people who fit this dominant narrative, they see their realities reflected in films, literature, art, and journalism. People who are marginalised, their narratives tend to be oversimplified. So, in the past, stories about women or refugees or disabled people have somehow been included only to show how men or citizens or people without disabilities, how caring they are, or how evil they are, depending on how the story is going. But it wasn’t about those marginalized figures and their inner lives and their agency. So, I did want to write a book that looked at specific experiences of being a woman. And I deliberately chose a structure that was complex, that requires the reader to let go of trying to follow the story in an intellectual way. I mean, it can be followed in an intellectual way, but then you’ll need a piece of paper and a pen. Many people have studied my novel, and written doctoral theses on it. But that wasn’t my main aim. My main aim was to reach readers at an emotional level. And it’s this confusion and disorientation, which is really telling of people who are marginalized, who try to fit in and somehow constantly see that their experiences aren’t the experiences that fit with those around them. This is confusing, and disorientating and frustrating, and that was something what I was going for with this novel.

The use of objects (a broom, a doorknob, and a room) as narrators in your novel is a striking and innovative device, providing an objective, omnipotent eye to the narrative. Could you share the inspiration behind this narrative technique?

I studied German literature and linguistics at university level. And I was also deeply interested in theatre. I was a huge fan of the way Bertolt Brecht used art to draw attention to the problems of society. His theatre used what he called the alienation effect. He constantly jolted the public out of their sense of complacency and encouraged them to think critically about what they were watching. This affected me a lot. When a traumatic story is told through the perspective of an object, there is a chance that the reader feels a certain amount of distance. It provides a way for a reader to be a witness. I wanted my readers to be moved when they read my novel, but I didn’t want them to be completely destroyed and in floods of tears. I wanted to create a certain space where they can engage with what’s being told in a way that encourages them to be responsive. Often, when we witness traumatic things, we think that there’s nothing we can do. Like a rabbit in the headlights kind of situation. I wouldn’t like that to be the response to my novel. If at all, I would encourage my readers to think that the least they could do is bear witness. Bearing witness is an extremely important role in trying to prevent future tragedies. I also use humour to the same effect.

Through the novel, did you also want to challenge the traditional notions of history that determine whose stories are deemed important enough to be told? In what ways does the novel employ the concept of reincarnation and the intermingling of human spirits to shape its narrative, and how does this aspect affect Ada?

It was very important to me to challenge traditional notions of history. History has always — or maybe not always, but the history I learned in school — been told in a very linear fashion, where what happened in the past was primitive and gone, and irrelevant. And where we are now is much better than the past and where we’re headed is going to be the best of the best — the shiny future that we’re all striving towards. I always felt slightly frustrated with that vision of history because we can learn from the past. As an activist, I have to look back and learn from my ancestors. Our predecessors fought for resistance in times where they could not know that they would ever be free. So, for example, enslaved people in the Americas fought to hold on to their humanity. They remembered their languages, their food, cooking methods, recipes, songs, poetry, symbols that they carried with them in jewellery or in their hair. They were fighting to hold on to who they were, and pass it on to future generations even though there was no guarantee that they would ever see liberation themselves. It’s that kind of optimism that inspires me in my work.

I’m fighting for the liberation of the oppressed people. And I know that I won’t see the end of that. Maybe even my children won’t see its happy resolution. But that shouldn’t stop me in taking my place in the long line of people who have been fighting for it. So, I don’t tend to look at this happy-ending version of life, but more and more, I think about how life presents us with challenges. It presented my ancestors with challenges and in ways in which there were certain things not achieved. What did they try? What could I try? If I don’t achieve what can my children try? How can we transform the situations that we’re in? That was my main aim. And that’s why the story, at least in the historical part, has an almost circular structure; it’s not really a circle, it’s more of an infinity loop. The circle would imply that you’re just going round and round and round and staying at the same spot. That’s not what I think. And the infinity loop is supposed to show that we’re transforming and moving. We’re overcoming, we’re going back to reflect, and we’re keeping on spiralling, maybe upwards. So, that’s why I chose that structure. It also seemed to me that histories are often told from a very masculine perspective, and it’s about quantitative things; how big was the army and how many people were killed? And how long did the war last? And I thought if history was told from a feminist perspective, what other things would we be focused on? And that’s why I chose to look at very small details of female lives, of marginalized lives; although the main characters are women, we also do meet other characters who are marginalized.

What were some of the obstacles you encountered while working on this novel, and how did you overcome them? How have your personal experiences as a Black British mother and activist shaped your writing, particularly in addressing themes of identity, culture, and feminism?

This novel was very challenging to write because it demanded a great deal of concentration. Novels always require a lot of focus, but this one was particularly demanding due to the nature of the subject matter and its structure. I didn’t have a model to work from. I was attempting something new that I hadn’t seen anywhere else, and I was writing in a specific political context. I’m writing as a black woman in a predominantly white society, and I’m also a British person in German society. The subject I’m writing about, such as German history in 1945, is something I knew would likely invite criticism. I had to carefully consider why I was pursuing this story. While I was writing, I knew there was a high chance that people might criticize my work, and I had to decide how to handle it. I chose to stick to my intentions, though I want to clarify that I don’t mean this in an arrogant way. I knew that it might be possible for me to make a mistake or get something wrong, causing offence or hurt to someone. In such cases, I would need to listen to that person. If I did hear from them, I would carefully consider what they said.  My novel did receive criticism from one author. In my opinion, the individual who criticised the novel was a Jewish author who had misunderstood the historical context I was writing about. If anyone else had a valid complaint, where I felt I made a mistake or acted inconsiderately, I would have apologised and taken necessary steps to rectify the situation. This was a risk I was willing to take. So far, while I have faced criticism, I have been able to accept it because it has come from positions I can intellectually engage with. Some men, who misunderstood the intent of my novel and were unfamiliar with the historical context, criticised it for different reasons, but I can understand their perspective. Occasionally, some white female literary critics have criticised my novel, feeling offended by my exploration of racism. This is also acceptable. There was a literary critic of colour who provided a detailed review of my novel and expressed her criticisms, which I found valid. However, I didn’t feel that I had made a mistake or needed to apologise for anything.

What are you currently working on? I’m currently working on a novel that delves into a specific period in Germany, this time focusing on the early 1970s. My aim with this novel is to tell a story of German history from the perspectives of black Germans. This time, I’m zooming in on a very small period of time. My first novel spanned roughly 500 years, but my second novel narrows its focus to just a matter of minutes. It revolves around a married couple. She is an Afro-German with roots in Cameroon. During the Second World War, she survived in Germany by going into hiding to avoid arrest and internment in a concentration camp. After the war, her deepest desire was to escape and leave Germany behind. In 1946, she crossed paths with her future husband, a US American GI. He had previously been in Germany because of his athletic pursuits, having participated in the 1936 Olympics. His return to Germany was fuelled by the difference he noticed between his experiences in Germany and the United States, where he encountered the harsh realities of Jim Crow laws, lynching, and rampant discrimination. He had also faced personal tragedy in the US. Eager to escape the life he left behind, he happily returned to Germany, where his status and experiences were drastically different. In Frankfurt, they meet and eventually get married. Their perspectives on Germany couldn’t be more divergent, and they envision very different futures. Ultimately, he decides that they will remain in Germany, and we encounter them a couple of decades later, in the early 1970s. The novel unfolds as a snapshot in time, as he discovers something about her that he was previously unaware of. 

Shireen Quadri is the editor of The Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing: Select Short Stories by Women Writers.

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Ada’s Realm explores the displacement and enslavement of women, as well as the brutalities inflicted on them across different time periods and places. What was the trigger for the novel? 

The reason I wrote this novel was actually because I won a literature prize back in 2019 for a short story I wrote. The prize was completely unexpected because it was a German language award. German is a language I learned later in life; I learned it in school. So I was not at all expecting to receive this award. But when I did, I received a lot of media attention and finally got a literary agent. I was taken under the wing of a very prominent publishing house in Germany. I knew that this was my chance to expand on the short story that had won me the prize. Originally, the short story was going to be something like the first chapter of the novel or the last chapter of the novel. In the end, I needed to distance myself from the short story because it had become quite iconic, if that’s the right word; it had taken on a life of its own. There was a specific tone in the short story that was completely different from the one I was trying to strike in the novel. So, they became two separate works, but people who know both pieces will see the connections between them.

Ada is many women: a grieving mother in 15th-century Ghana; a mathematician in Victorian England; a Polish sex slave in a concentration camp in Germany. How did you approach the challenge of weaving together these diverse narratives to create a sense of continuum? Does this structure reflect the complexities of women’s lives?

I believe that everyone’s life has complexities, not specifically women’s lives. In societies where there is typically a dominant narrative, and people who fit this dominant narrative, they see their realities reflected in films, literature, art, and journalism. People who are marginalised, their narratives tend to be oversimplified. So, in the past, stories about women or refugees or disabled people have somehow been included only to show how men or citizens or people without disabilities, how caring they are, or how evil they are, depending on how the story is going. But it wasn’t about those marginalized figures and their inner lives and their agency. So, I did want to write a book that looked at specific experiences of being a woman. And I deliberately chose a structure that was complex, that requires the reader to let go of trying to follow the story in an intellectual way. I mean, it can be followed in an intellectual way, but then you’ll need a piece of paper and a pen. Many people have studied my novel, and written doctoral theses on it. But that wasn’t my main aim. My main aim was to reach readers at an emotional level. And it’s this confusion and disorientation, which is really telling of people who are marginalized, who try to fit in and somehow constantly see that their experiences aren’t the experiences that fit with those around them. This is confusing, and disorientating and frustrating, and that was something what I was going for with this novel.

The use of objects (a broom, a doorknob, and a room) as narrators in your novel is a striking and innovative device, providing an objective, omnipotent eye to the narrative. Could you share the inspiration behind this narrative technique?

I studied German literature and linguistics at university level. And I was also deeply interested in theatre. I was a huge fan of the way Bertolt Brecht used art to draw attention to the problems of society. His theatre used what he called the alienation effect. He constantly jolted the public out of their sense of complacency and encouraged them to think critically about what they were watching. This affected me a lot. When a traumatic story is told through the perspective of an object, there is a chance that the reader feels a certain amount of distance. It provides a way for a reader to be a witness. I wanted my readers to be moved when they read my novel, but I didn’t want them to be completely destroyed and in floods of tears. I wanted to create a certain space where they can engage with what’s being told in a way that encourages them to be responsive. Often, when we witness traumatic things, we think that there’s nothing we can do. Like a rabbit in the headlights kind of situation. I wouldn’t like that to be the response to my novel. If at all, I would encourage my readers to think that the least they could do is bear witness. Bearing witness is an extremely important role in trying to prevent future tragedies. I also use humour to the same effect.

Through the novel, did you also want to challenge the traditional notions of history that determine whose stories are deemed important enough to be told? In what ways does the novel employ the concept of reincarnation and the intermingling of human spirits to shape its narrative, and how does this aspect affect Ada?

It was very important to me to challenge traditional notions of history. History has always — or maybe not always, but the history I learned in school — been told in a very linear fashion, where what happened in the past was primitive and gone, and irrelevant. And where we are now is much better than the past and where we’re headed is going to be the best of the best — the shiny future that we’re all striving towards. I always felt slightly frustrated with that vision of history because we can learn from the past. As an activist, I have to look back and learn from my ancestors. Our predecessors fought for resistance in times where they could not know that they would ever be free. So, for example, enslaved people in the Americas fought to hold on to their humanity. They remembered their languages, their food, cooking methods, recipes, songs, poetry, symbols that they carried with them in jewellery or in their hair. They were fighting to hold on to who they were, and pass it on to future generations even though there was no guarantee that they would ever see liberation themselves. It’s that kind of optimism that inspires me in my work.

I’m fighting for the liberation of the oppressed people. And I know that I won’t see the end of that. Maybe even my children won’t see its happy resolution. But that shouldn’t stop me in taking my place in the long line of people who have been fighting for it. So, I don’t tend to look at this happy-ending version of life, but more and more, I think about how life presents us with challenges. It presented my ancestors with challenges and in ways in which there were certain things not achieved. What did they try? What could I try? If I don’t achieve what can my children try? How can we transform the situations that we’re in? That was my main aim. And that’s why the story, at least in the historical part, has an almost circular structure; it’s not really a circle, it’s more of an infinity loop. The circle would imply that you’re just going round and round and round and staying at the same spot. That’s not what I think. And the infinity loop is supposed to show that we’re transforming and moving. We’re overcoming, we’re going back to reflect, and we’re keeping on spiralling, maybe upwards. So, that’s why I chose that structure. It also seemed to me that histories are often told from a very masculine perspective, and it’s about quantitative things; how big was the army and how many people were killed? And how long did the war last? And I thought if history was told from a feminist perspective, what other things would we be focused on? And that’s why I chose to look at very small details of female lives, of marginalized lives; although the main characters are women, we also do meet other characters who are marginalized.

What were some of the obstacles you encountered while working on this novel, and how did you overcome them? How have your personal experiences as a Black British mother and activist shaped your writing, particularly in addressing themes of identity, culture, and feminism?

This novel was very challenging to write because it demanded a great deal of concentration. Novels always require a lot of focus, but this one was particularly demanding due to the nature of the subject matter and its structure. I didn’t have a model to work from. I was attempting something new that I hadn’t seen anywhere else, and I was writing in a specific political context. I’m writing as a black woman in a predominantly white society, and I’m also a British person in German society. The subject I’m writing about, such as German history in 1945, is something I knew would likely invite criticism. I had to carefully consider why I was pursuing this story. While I was writing, I knew there was a high chance that people might criticize my work, and I had to decide how to handle it. I chose to stick to my intentions, though I want to clarify that I don’t mean this in an arrogant way. I knew that it might be possible for me to make a mistake or get something wrong, causing offence or hurt to someone. In such cases, I would need to listen to that person. If I did hear from them, I would carefully consider what they said.  My novel did receive criticism from one author. In my opinion, the individual who criticised the novel was a Jewish author who had misunderstood the historical context I was writing about. If anyone else had a valid complaint, where I felt I made a mistake or acted inconsiderately, I would have apologised and taken necessary steps to rectify the situation. This was a risk I was willing to take. So far, while I have faced criticism, I have been able to accept it because it has come from positions I can intellectually engage with. Some men, who misunderstood the intent of my novel and were unfamiliar with the historical context, criticised it for different reasons, but I can understand their perspective. Occasionally, some white female literary critics have criticised my novel, feeling offended by my exploration of racism. This is also acceptable. There was a literary critic of colour who provided a detailed review of my novel and expressed her criticisms, which I found valid. However, I didn’t feel that I had made a mistake or needed to apologise for anything.

What are you currently working on? I’m currently working on a novel that delves into a specific period in Germany, this time focusing on the early 1970s. My aim with this novel is to tell a story of German history from the perspectives of black Germans. This time, I’m zooming in on a very small period of time. My first novel spanned roughly 500 years, but my second novel narrows its focus to just a matter of minutes. It revolves around a married couple. She is an Afro-German with roots in Cameroon. During the Second World War, she survived in Germany by going into hiding to avoid arrest and internment in a concentration camp. After the war, her deepest desire was to escape and leave Germany behind. In 1946, she crossed paths with her future husband, a US American GI. He had previously been in Germany because of his athletic pursuits, having participated in the 1936 Olympics. His return to Germany was fuelled by the difference he noticed between his experiences in Germany and the United States, where he encountered the harsh realities of Jim Crow laws, lynching, and rampant discrimination. He had also faced personal tragedy in the US. Eager to escape the life he left behind, he happily returned to Germany, where his status and experiences were drastically different. In Frankfurt, they meet and eventually get married. Their perspectives on Germany couldn’t be more divergent, and they envision very different futures. Ultimately, he decides that they will remain in Germany, and we encounter them a couple of decades later, in the early 1970s. The novel unfolds as a snapshot in time, as he discovers something about her that he was previously unaware of. 

Shireen Quadri is the editor of The Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing: Select Short Stories by Women Writers.

“Exciting news! Hindustan Times is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!” Click here!