Owuor: »Ich weiß,der Tag wird gut.« ( )

In the middle of nowhere, is how we should best understand the title of this voluminous work "Nowhere in Africa", or by its original German title Nirgendwo in Afrika. As the tags on LibraryThing indicate, there is considerable confusion about the nature of this book, and its sequel, Irgendwo in Deutschland, by Stefanie Zweig. Stylistically, it reads very much like a memoir, but according to the author and publisher it should be read as an autobiographical novel.

It is with awe and horror that we read memoirs and history of the holocaust. I feel, I have to keep reading, to keep the memory of those people who underwent that horrendous fate.

Not that many books have appeared about individuals or families who escaped Nazi Germany, and found a safe haven in other countries. This book is therefore very valuable. In the first part, it described the process, a combination of luck and foresight, and the difficulties to be overcome to obtain visa and a means of living in Kenya. Another interesting feature is the description of the hesitation and disbelief of the family members in Poland that the developments in Nazi Germany meant serious deauth peril to Jewish communities in Poland and other parts of Europe, and the difficulty of realizing which luggage would be essential and which superfluous, as the family had to dissolve their household, pack up, abandon their lifestyle and move to, and settle in the middle of nowhere, deep in the Kenyan countryside, as farmers.

The book described the youth, and growing up of the main character, and life in Africa. The description of Africans is particularly warm and friendly, and the story is soaked in the deep, natural and spiritual believes of the Africans.

Unfortunately, the sequel to the story in Africa, Irgendwo in Deutschland, lacks the freshness of the first book. It describes the harsh reality of the family's return to Germany. Some features of this story are interesting, notably the description of the difficulties of living in Frankfurt, right after the end of the war, before the Waerungsreform, the years of scarcity, the solidarity between Jewish families, and the aggression of some Germans to Jewish people and the preferential treatment they received in those years. While Irgendwo in Deutschland in shorter than the story set in Africa, I felt it was too long. The repeated reminiscences about the time in Africa and the iteration of the use of expressions in Swahili created the sense that the story was dragged out too much. ( )