Sharon Dodua Otoo

Sharon Otoo was born in Ilford, London. Her parents were both originally from Accra, Ghana, before moving to Ilford, London where Otoo was born and grew up. Otoo has two siblings.[2] After completing her schooling, she travelled to Hanover in 1992 where she stayed for a year to work as an au pair and developed an interest in the German language.

On her return Otoo studied German and Management Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, and graduated with a BA (Hons) in 1997. After graduating from Royal Holloway, Otoo returned to Germany where she has lived ever since, living in Berlin since 2006 with her four sons.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper in 2016, Otoo described herself as a “Black British mother, activist, author and editor” and spoke of having mixed feelings towards Britain. “I have a British passport and London is my home,” she said, “but there was still this something in the background music that said: ‘You don’t really belong here’.”[1]

As an activist Otoo has been involved with the Initiative for Black People in Germany (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland (ISD-Bund)), serving on the board of directors between 2010 and 2013[3] as well as a number of other groups. She edits the English-language book series Witnessed and has published numerous politically engaged articles on the subjects of culture, diversity and feminism.[4]

In her Guardian interview of 2016 she explained: “Politics can be very polarising and confrontational. With my writing, I would like to say: we can go out and demonstrate, but at the end of the day all we all want is to be understood and be treated with empathy.”[1]

Since 2014 she has worked as a project coordinator for the Regionale Arbeitsstelle Berlin, an organisation which furthers the social integration and development of children of immigrant families from their early schooling up to professional training.[5]

Otoo’s first novella was entitled the things i am thinking while smiling politely [sic], published in February 2012 by Edition Assemblage, a small left-wing German publisher.[6][7] This was followed in 2014 by another novella Synchronicity.[8] Both works were originally written in English and translated into German by Mirjam Nuenning.

Otoo’s creative writing encompasses magical realism, Afrofuturism, identity issues, relationships and empowerment. She cites German-language writers such as Bertolt Brecht and Max Frisch as inspiration, for “combining sharp analysis of society with humour”, as well as Toni Morrison and Mildred D Taylor, “women writers who made the black experience in the US very tangible to me”.[1]

Otoo was invited to take part in the 2016 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize competition by Frankfurter Allgemeine editor Sandra Kegel.[9] At the time Otoo said she was not aware of the prize’s significance in the German-speaking world. “That was probably a good idea,” she said , “otherwise I wouldn’t have submitted anything.”[1]

Otoo’s winning entry was “Herr Gröttrup setzte sich hin” (“Herr Gröttrup sat down”),[10] the story of engineer and V2 rocket-scientist Helmut Gröttrup and his wife Irmgard sitting down to breakfast. Herr Gröttrup’s breakfast egg takes over the narration and rebels against the orderly household by remaining soft despite being boiled for the regulation seven and a half minutes: and so commences a story hailed for its ‘changeling’ character, gentle satire and humour.[9]

The award was presented by the Mayor of Klagenfurt, Maria Luise Mathiasschitz, who praised Otoo as “a new voice for a new society”. When questioned by The Guardian whether the award represented the jury’s desire to make a stand against the growing xenophobia and right-wing populism in Europe, Otoo said it might have played a part, “but I think in the end they voted for the quality of the story”.[1]

The award has a prize of 25,000 Euros and Otoo has said that she intends to use the opportunity to write her first full-length novel.

• Author's website
• At the Edition Assemblage website
• At the ORF website