Sharon Dodua Otoo is a writer and political activist. She writes prose and essays and is the editor of the Witnessed book series. Her novel “Ada’s Realm” has been translated into many languages. In 2016, Otoo won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, Germany’s major literary festival.
In her book “Gesammeltes Schweigen”, the writer opened up new perspectives on the life and work of Heinrich Böll, the German winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Literature. This confrontation was also the beginning of a joint literary exchange between Sharon Dodua Otoo and myself, which took the form of three conversations.
First, in the form of text messages in her book “Gesammeltes Schweigen”; second, in a live Instagram discussion; and third, in an interview with the Heinrich Böll Foundation. In all three formats, we talked about how we would approach Heinrich Böll’s positions such as “Language, Conscience, Responsible Writing” today.
