Sebastian Domsch on Brooklyn as a spot of literature | EUROtoday

Wer in den vergangenen Jahren viel auf Social-Media-Plattformen un­terwegs war, wird nicht um Witze über Bushwick herumgekommen sein. Das Viertel im nördlichen Teil Brooklyns gilt inzwischen als Inbegriff von Gentrifizierung und Coolness, vor allem junge, weiße Künstler leben hier. Ella Emhoff etwa, die Stieftochter von Kamala Harris, wird als „First Daughter of Bushwick“ bezeichnet. Bushwick hat somit Williamsburg, das bislang als Hipsterhochburg von Brooklyn galt, inzwischen den Rang abgelaufen.

Der Imagewandel des ganzen Bezirks begann nach der Jahrtausendwende. Noch im Jahr 2004, in der letzten Staffel von „Sex and the City“, hatte Miranda (gespielt von Cynthia Nixon) mit ihrer Entscheidung gehadert, nach Brooklyn zu ziehen: „Even cabs won’t go there.“ Nicht mal Taxis wollen da hin. Oder um es mit dem Konzertveranstalter Todd P zu sagen, den Lizzy Goodman in ihrer Oral History der Musikszene von New York der letzten Jahrzehnte zitiert: „Brooklyn war das Schlimmste zweier Welten – der Ort, wo deine Großmutter herkam und wo du umgebracht werden würdest.“

Times have modified. Not solely Williamsburg and Bushwick, however massive elements of all of Brooklyn at the moment are sought-after locations to reside, for artists and non-artists alike. Manhattan has misplaced its cultural relevance as a result of rents of $2,000, $3,000 or extra for a room in a shared condo usually are not reasonably priced for a lot of, to not point out the price of proudly owning their very own residences.

But though Brooklyn has lengthy been thought-about the realm by which, in line with Todd P, solely the outdated and criminals lived, one can be doing the borough (because the New York boroughs are known as) an injustice if one have been to solely give attention to its improvement over the previous twenty or thirty years – and limit them. Because the literature, which has been telling about Brooklyn for hundreds of years, extra exactly since Walt Whitman (1819–1892), proves: It has at all times been a melting pot. It was at all times a mirrored image of its time.

Brooklyn as a “place of literature”: In his new guide, the English scholar Sebastian Domsch, professor on the University of Greifswald, offers with precisely this fascination that the district exerts. Using literary texts, he tells in regards to the historical past of the district, its structural and picture adjustments and about society and the communities within the particular person districts.

In addition to this journey by means of historical past, some particular locations are launched briefly chapters – such because the Brooklyn Bridge. Or the notorious Red Hook neighborhood, dubbed the “crack capital of America” by Life journal in 1988. Or the “Brooklyn Inn”, one of many oldest pubs. Domsch discusses just a few chosen novels from Brooklyn individually.

What is noticeable at first look: Paul Auster is simply talked about in passing. A shocking but in addition refreshing choice to present hardly any area to what’s undoubtedly Brooklyn’s most well-known author, who died in April of this yr and who made his homeland identified all around the world and particularly in Germany along with his novels, and as an alternative prefers to give attention to others, a minimum of within the German-speaking language Space for lesser-known authors.

“This volume,” as Domsch describes his undertaking initially, “wants to make Brooklyn’s literary heritage as well as its literary present tangible,” exactly as a result of Brooklyn has at all times been a “cipher for contemporary America, in the 20th and 21st centuries.” . century”. Apparently, “one in seven people in the United States can trace their family back to Brooklyn.” The continued significance of Brooklyn for the whole USA goes again to the founding of the nation. After all, it was not the Declaration of Independence, signed in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, that determined the destiny of the nation, however somewhat the so-called “Battle of Brooklyn” on August 27 of the identical yr, when the Continental Army was defeated.

In 1898, Brooklyn was included into town of New York after a vote by which the vast majority of Manhattanites voted in favor, however amongst Brooklyn residents the margin of sure votes was solely 300. The incorporation helped Manhattan particularly to achieve new wealth. Nevertheless, each districts benefited from one another economically and culturally, however on the similar time in addition they competed with one another – one thing that has not modified to today.

The poet Walt Whitman, who lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan once they have been nonetheless unbiased cities, noticed Brooklyn as a first-class place to reside, a “superior place for dwelling,” as Domsch quotes the poet (by the best way, all of his sources stay untranslated in English Original). Whitman was, in a way, a harbinger of in the present day’s era of writers. From there, Domsch takes us additional into the twentieth century, which takes up many of the area in his guide, and introduces authors akin to Betty Smith (“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”), Hubert Selby (“Last Exit Brooklyn”), Chaim Potok ( “The Chosen”) and naturally Jonathan Lethem (“The Fortress of Solitude”) in additional element.

At the most recent along with his look into the twenty first century – which intimately is reserved for Lethem and his autobiographically coloured coming-of-age novel printed in 2003 – a significant weak level within the in any other case entertainingly written and brevity well-researched guide turns into apparent: Domsch ignores the affect of non-white authors.

In his (in depth) bibliography he lists Paule Marshall and her 1959 novel “Brown Girl, Brownstones” and likewise Jacqueline Woodson’s “Another Brooklyn” (2016). Unfortunately, they aren’t talked about in additional element within the guide. And in doing so, Domsch undermines his personal declare to depict the entire of Brooklyn. Whether we’re speaking in regards to the twentieth century or the current, about literature or an actual group: lowering Brooklyn to white and Jewish writers and leaving out the black, Asian-American and Latino populations sadly makes what is definitely a profitable guide incomplete.

Especially in modern literature, there are a variety of authors – akin to Xochitl Gonzalez, Tao Lin or Aisha Abdel Gawad – who write about Brooklyn from very completely different positions. But it’s exactly their voices that full this numerous and fascinating district as a “place of literature”. They are lacking right here.