âSometimes things begin with the wrong bookâ: Images and Intertexts in Darryl Pinckneyâs Black Deutschland

Gianna Zocco

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Chapter 15 âSometimes things begin with the wrong bookâ: Images and Intertexts in Darryl Pinckneyâs Black Deutschland

In: Taking Stock â Twenty-Five Years of Comparative Literary Research

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Gianna Zocco

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 421â444

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004410350_017

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Abstract

African-American writer Darryl Pinckneyâs recent novel Black Deutschland constitutes an interesting case for the imagological and intertextual analysis of literature. Set in Berlin of the 1980s, the novel introduces British writer Christopher Isherwoodâs Goodbye to Berlin and his autobiographical Christopher and His Kind as its basic hypotext and as a kind of literary travel guide for the homosexual, African-American protagonist hoping to repeat Isherwoodâs romantic and bohemian lifestyle in the Western part of the divided city. While references to Isherwoodâs experiences in the waning Weimar Republic constitute a structural foil to the protagonistâs life in a city whose political structure is â again â only a few years from irreversibly changing, the intertextual structure of Black Deutschland is much more complex and multifaceted. Defining the references to the African-American literary genre of the black expatriate finding love in Europe as a second core intertextual reference point, this article relates references to Isherwood and the allusions to African-American writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Claude McKay, and James Baldwin. While the two intertextual traditions merge into a concordant image of a romantic, bohemian Berlin promising âblack boysâ the opportunity to find the love of âwhite boysâ, this article shows that this intertextual image of Berlin is put in stark contrast to the actual, disappointing experiences of the novelâs own protagonist in the German metropolis.

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Taking Stock â Twenty-Five Years of Comparative Literary Research

Series:Â Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft Online, Volume: 200Â andÂ Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, Volume: 200

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004410350

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 22 Oct 2019

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 15 âSometimes things begin with the wrong bookâ: Images and Intertexts in Darryl Pinckneyâs Black Deutschland

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Taking Stock â Twenty-Five Years of Comparative Literary Research

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Chapter 15 âSometimes things begin with the wrong bookâ: Images and Intertexts in Darryl Pinckneyâs Black Deutschland

Taking Stock â Twenty-Five Years of Comparative Literary Research